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LETTER TO A DYING MAN I l'i]risen from the dead, laughing loudly and clapping your hands indelight. Now for the first time you will know that Mind itself isBuddha. Were someone to ask, "What does one's Buddha-mindlook like?" I would answer: "In the trees fish play, in the deep seabirds are flying." What does this mean? If you don't understand it,look into your own Mind and ask yourself: "What is he, this masterwho sees and hears?"Make the most of time: it waits for no one.4 J TO A DY ING MAN I Your Mind-essence is notsubject to birth or death. It is neither being nor nothingness, neitheremptiness nor form-and-color. Nor is it something that feels pain orjoy. However much you try to know [with your rational mind] thatwhich is now sick, you cannot. Yet if you think of nothing, wishfor nothing, want to understand nothing, cling to nothing, and onlyask yourself, "What is the true substance of the Mind of this one whois now suffering?" ending your days like clouds fading in the sky' youwill eventually be freed from your painful bondage to endless change.s I TO THE LAYMAN IPPO (HOMMA SHO­K EN) / You are meeting him face to face, but who is he? Anythingyou say will be wrong. And if you hold your tongue, youwill be equally wrong. Who is he, then? On top of a flagpole a cowgives birth to a cal£ If you come to Self-realization at this point,you need do nothing further. If you cannot, look inward to beholdyour Buddha-nature. Everyone is perfectly endowed with this Buddha-nature.Its substance is the same in ordinary human beings as inBuddhas, with not the slightest difference in degree. But because mancan't bring himself to believe this, he binds himself to delusion withthe rope of unreality by saying: "The realization of my Self-nature isbeyond me. It is better that I recite sutras, bow down before Buddhas,and enter the Way gradually through the grace of all Buddhas."Most of those who hear this accept it as true. It is as though one blindman were leading many blind men in the wrong direction. Thesepeople do not really believe sutras and Buddhas-on the contrary,they set no store by them. (For if they truly accepted them, they