What's the source of this lines?

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JoaoRodrigues
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What's the source of this lines?

Post by JoaoRodrigues »

The following image was taken from the beginning of the film Why Has Bodhi-Dharma Left for the East.

It's a Korean film, made by a painter, took ten years into the making.

It was an attempt to make a film that's a koan, with, also, famous koans — it's an astonishing beautiful I must say.

I was wondering what's the source, the text, from which this was taken.

If you want you can view it in here.

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PadmaVonSamba
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Re: What's the source of this lines?

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

I don’t know where the line comes from,
but it’s a great movie!
(Maybe the line originated in that movie).
EMPTIFUL.
An inward outlook produces outward insight.
avatamsaka3
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Re: What's the source of this lines?

Post by avatamsaka3 »

Seems like a version of concepts from the Platform sutra:

https://www.treeleaf.org/forums/content ... NZAZENGI-5

But ask Astus. He would know for sure.
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Astus
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Re: What's the source of this lines?

Post by Astus »

JoaoRodrigues wrote: Wed Mar 31, 2021 2:48 pmI was wondering what's the source, the text, from which this was taken.
What the monk says at the beginning (source):

무시무종(無始無終)에
본래무일물(本來無一物)이라.
시작도 끝도 없잖아.
나지도 죽지도 않은 이 한 물건.

The first two lines are the original Chinese, presumably reading from that book. The second two lines are the same but in modern Korean.

無始無終 (무시무종 / mu sim mu jong) - no beginning, no end; very common expression, found in numerous sutras and treatises
本來無一物 (본래무일물 / bon rae mu il mul) - originally not a thing; most well known source is Huineng's poem in the Platform Sutra

The two phrases do not seem to occur together in the canonical texts.
1 Myriad dharmas are only mind.
Mind is unobtainable.
What is there to seek?

2 If the Buddha-Nature is seen,
there will be no seeing of a nature in any thing.

3 Neither cultivation nor seated meditation —
this is the pure Chan of Tathagata.

4 With sudden enlightenment to Tathagata Chan,
the six paramitas and myriad means
are complete within that essence.


1 Huangbo, T2012Ap381c1 2 Nirvana Sutra, T374p521b3; tr. Yamamoto 3 Mazu, X1321p3b23; tr. J. Jia 4 Yongjia, T2014p395c14; tr. from "The Sword of Wisdom"
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KeithA
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Re: What's the source of this lines?

Post by KeithA »

Those lines are a common theme in Seon. I don't believe it quotes any specific kong an, though.

Here is a poem that hangs in our tea room, and is often used in our Sangha as a teaching poem:

The Human Route

Coming empty-handed, going empty-handed – that is human.
When you are born, where do you come from?
When you die, where do you go?
Life is like a floating cloud which appears.
Death is like a floating cloud which disappears.
The floating cloud itself originally does not exist.
Life and death, coming and going, are also like that.
But there is one thing which always remains clear.
It is pure and clear, not depending on life and death.
Then what is the one pure and clear thing?
_/|\_
Keith
When walking, standing, sitting, lying down, speaking,
being silent, moving, being still.
At all times, in all places, without interruption - what is this?
One mind is infinite kalpas.

New Haven Zen Center
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