Zen Poetry: If the Mind is Like a Tree, It Accords with the Way

The Tree Before the Gate — Tang Dynasty, Chan Master Longya Judong

My only thought is the tree before the gate, that gives shelter to birds as they alight and fly. Those who come, it calls to no one; those who take wing, it does not pine for their return. If your mind is like this tree, you will not stray from the Way.

Dharma teachings are not limited to sentient beings; even the insentient—mountains, rivers, grasses, and trees—can teach the Dharma, audible to the mind’s ear. Chan Master Dongshan Wuben of Junzhou left this verse: “How wondrous! How wondrous! The insentient preaching the Dharma is beyond conception. If you seek it with the physical ear, you will never grasp it; only when you hear it through the eye can you truly know it.” In Amitabha Buddha’s Land of Ultimate Bliss, the trees, flowers, and birds all sing out the truths of suffering, emptiness, impermanence, and non-self. The great assembly gathered in the lotus ponds, upon hearing these sounds, awaken spontaneously and realize the fruit of their own accord.

This poem reveals the subtle meaning behind the insentient teaching of the Dharma. A towering tree offers shelter to countless birds, and “when they come, it calls to no one; when they rise, it does not long for their return”—for the tree, the birds come as they come, and go as they go. The Records of the Source Mirror states: “If you do not generate deluded thoughts, you will naturally accord with awakening. Thus it is said: mindlessness is the Way.” As the poem goes on to say, “If your mind is like this tree, you will not stray from the Way.” If a practitioner can cultivate this “mindlessness” of the tree, they will be in perfect accord with the Way. That said, the “mindlessness” of a sage is nothing like the dull, unfeeling state of wood or stone. This mindlessness does not mean being lost in passive ignorance; rather, it is a state of clear, lucid awareness that does not cling to any passing thought. It is the mindlessness of a mind that does not abide in anything. All dharmas are empty by nature; if you claim to have attained something in the dharmas, or to have realized awakening, this is simply grasping at marks: the split between subject and object still remains, and you cannot attain the supreme, perfect fruit of the Way.