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Song of Zazen

Sentient beings are from the very beginning

Buddhas. It is like ice and water: apart from water,

No ice can exist. Outside sentient beings,

Where do we find the Buddhas?

Not knowing how near the Truth is,

We seek it far away. What a pity!

We are like a person who, in the midst of water,

Cries in thirst so imploringly.

We are like the child of a rich house

Who has wandered away among the poor.

The cause of our circling through the six worlds

Is that we are on the dark paths of ignorance;

Going astray further and further in the darkness.

When are we able to be free from birth and death?

As for Zazen practice of the Mahayana,

It is beyond all our praise.

The virtues of perfection such as charity, morality

And the invocation of the Buddha's name,

Confession and ascetic discipline,

And many other good deeds of merit,

All these return to this!

Even those who have practiced meditation

For just one sitting,

Will see all their twisted karma erased.

Nowhere will they find twisted paths

But the pure land will be near at hand.