信心銘 Faith in mind 三祖僧燦 著
至道無難 Realization of the Enlightened Mind is nothing difficult.
唯嫌揀擇 If only you are not choosy.
但莫憎愛 You need only to have no hatred and no love.
洞然明白 In order to achieve clear insight.
毫厘有差 Be off by a hair.
天地懸隔 You’ll be as far away as heaven from earth.
欲得現前 The enlightened mind will manifest itself.
莫存違順 If only you’re not for or against anything specific.
違順相爭 For and against oppose each other.
是為心病 This is the sickness of the mind.
不識玄旨 If you don’t realize the enlightened.
徒勞念靜 It’s useless to practice meditation.
圓同大虛 The enlightenment is complete as the great space.
無欠無餘 Nobody lacks it or has excess.
良由取捨 It is because of grasping and rejecting.
所以不如 That you cannot attain it.
莫逐有緣 Do not pursue the conditioned existence;
勿住空忍 Do not abide in the insistence.
一種平懷 If you regard all things as one and equal.
泯然自盡 Discrimination will vanish naturally.
止動歸止 Trying to cease the activities of mind.
止更彌動 Only leads to more activeness.
唯滯兩邊 This is merely an attachment to two extremes.
寧知一種 How can you realize oneness.
一種不通 If you fail to realize oneness of all things.
兩處失功 You will lose the function of both extremes.
遺有沒有 Banish existence, You will fall into existence.
從空背空 Go after emptiness, you will turn your back on.
多言多慮 Excessive of talking and thinking.
轉不相應 Turn you away from the Enlightened Mind.
言絕慮無 Cessation of talking and thinking.
無處不通 Makes you all penetrate things.
歸根得旨 Once you think that you have returned to the origin and found the truth.
隋照失宗 you already miss the principle.
須臾返照 as soon as you understand that mind in the producer of all extremes
勝卻前空 its better than knowing that some thing is existent of.
前空轉變 All insistences of existence or emptiness .
皆由妄見 Come from deluded views .
不用求真 No need to seek the truth.
唯須息見 Just extinguish your views .
二見不住 Do not abide dualistic views.
慎莫追尋 take care not to seek them.
才有是非 As soon as right and wrong comes into cognition.
紛然失心 The mind gets scattered and lost.
二由一有 The two extremes arise from one’s mind.
一亦莫守 Even the mind should not be attached to.
一心不生 When no thought is generated in the mind .
萬法無咎 All things are defect less.
無咎無法 Recognition of defect less induces that of no discrimination.
不生不心 No discrimination. Causes no arising of thought.
能隨境減 The thought ceases as the object does;
境逐能沈 The object sinks away as the thought does.
境由能境 Object is object because of the thought.
能由境能 Thought is thought because of the object .
欲知兩段 One should know that these two.
元是一空 Are actually the cognition of one empty mind.
一空同兩 The empty mind is not different from the two.
齊含萬象 The two one included in the mind.
不見精粗 If the fine and the coarse cannot be seen.
寧有偏黨 How can one have any bias.
大道體寬 The Enlightened Mind is bound less.
無易無難 Its Neither easy nor difficult to realize.
小見狐疑 The deluded mind arises doubt .
轉急轉遲 Realization comes fastly and slowly.
執之失度 Any extreme view will miss the sight understanding
必入邪路 Thus one certainly walks on the wrong path.
放之自然 Let the mind be free and spontaneous.
體無去住 It has neither going nor staying.
任性合道 Then you can accord with the nature and realize the enlightment mind.
逍遙絕惱 Winder at ease and be free of vexations
繫念乖真 Concentration departs from the truth
昏沈不好 Dullness is also no good.
不好勞神 Both will make one exhausted;
何用疏親 Why do you love one and hate the other.
欲取一乘 If you want to realize you’re a vehicle Enlightened Mind.
勿息六塵 You should not repell the sixth sense object.
六塵不惡 Non aversion to the sixth sense objects.
還同正覺 Brings you back to the perfect enlightenment.
智者無為 The wise one are free in mind.
愚人自縳 The fool bind themselves up.
法無異法 All things are same in nature.
妄自愛著 The deluded mind clings to whatever it desires.
將心得心 If you wish to use your mind to realize the Enlightened Mind.
豈非大錯 It’s a big mistake, isn’t it?
迷生寂亂 The deluded one discriminates the stillness from to turbulence
悟無好惡 The enlightened one has no likes or dislikes.
一切二邊 All dualistic views,
良由斟酌 come from discrimination.
夢幻虛花 All compounded things are like dreams, illusions or flowers in the air.
何勞把捉 How could they be worth grasping?
得失是非 Gain or loss, right or wrong,
一時放卻 Just let go right away.
眼若不睡 If your eyes don’t close in sleep,
諸夢自除 All dreams will cease by themselves.
心若不異 If the mind dose not discriminate.
萬法一如 All phenomena are of one suchness.
一如體玄 The essence of one suchness is profound and transcendental.
兀爾忘緣 Go beyond dualism and let go all conditioned things.
萬法齊觀 Contemplated all things as equal in nature.
歸復自然 Return everything to suchness.
泯其所以 Extinguish the dualistic mind.
不可方比 Nothing can be described.
止動無動 Still the movement and actually there is no movement.
動止無止 Move the stillness and actually there is no stillness.
兩既不成 If dualism cannot be established.
不何有爾 How can there be one suchness?
究竟窮極 In the absolute truth,
不成規則 There is no room for rules or standards.
契心平等Cultivate a mind of non-discrimination.
所作俱息 And stop making all efforts.
狐疑盡淨 Clear up every doubt and suspicion;
正信調直 Set right faith.
一切不留 Nothing to be kept;
無可記憶 Nothing to be remembered.
虛明自照 Everything is pure, clear and complete in itself.
不勞心力 No need to make any effort.
非思量處 The truth is beyond mental fabrication.
識情難測 The dualistic mind cannot figure out.
真如法界 In the realm of truth and suchness.
無他無自 There is no other and no itself.
要急相應 To achieve oneness is vitally important.
唯言不二 The only way is non-duality.
不二皆同 In “non-duality.”, all things are the same.
無不包容 Nothing is excluded.
十方智者 The wise from all directions.
皆入此宗 Are followers of this principle.
宗非促延 The principle is neither hurried nor slow;
一念萬年 One thought includes ten thousands years.
無在不在 It is nowhere yet everywhere.
十方目前 All directions are present in one.
極小同大 The smallest is as same as the largest.
忘絕境界 Since it has no boundary.
極大同小 The largest is as same as the smallest.
不見邊表 Since no border can be seen.
有即是無 Existence is emptiness;
無即是有 Emptiness is existence.
若不如此 If it is not so,
必不須守 There is no need to follow
一即一切 One is all;
一切即一 All is one.
但能如是 If you can do that,
何慮不畢 Nothing is to be worried.
信心不二 Realization of the Enlightened Mind is non-duality;
不二信心 Non-duality is realization of the Enlightened Mind.
言語道斷 In language, there is no enlightenment.
非去來今 It is not in the past, the future and the present.