Hai Phan Poet Free verse

The words I once heard

By Phan Tan Hai

The teacher taught: look into mind, no words appear—
in the wordless dawn, sunlight speaks.
Ancients and future ones smile like a dream;
who strikes the bell and steals a character today?

The teacher taught: rings, bracelets, ornaments—
all are one sky of non-duality, pure gold in nature.
To stir the mind of distinction is to drift away
into the vast waves of three realms, six paths.

The teacher taught: a hundred thousand cakes
are but one invisible dough.
Liking and disliking open countless worlds;
seeing the unborn mind is the unborn.

The teacher taught: this world is a play—
today this role, tomorrow another.
Suffering, like the great ocean of waves,
is still one nature of water, never apart.

The teacher taught: impermanence in all worlds—
to see it as real is delusion.
Do not say “is” or “is not”;
in wordless stillness, one does not err.

The teacher taught: emptiness is form—
like a hand turned over, palm to back.
To see nature is to see no self-nature;
hearing the bell, one sees the Dharma.

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