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DHARMA SPRING

This is the podcast of Andrew Palmer, a Dharma Teacher in The Open Source Koan Zen Tradition, covering topics related to meditation, koan practice, Zen/Chan, Daoism, spirituality and more. Recent talks and teachings as well as those from prior months/years are posted weekly, so tune in regularly to catch each episode.

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DHARMA SPRING

All Things Will Transform Themselves

May 19, 2023 • Andrew Palmer

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After several unsuccessful attempts at receiving advice from Vast Obscure…
Generalissimo Cloud said, "It is a rare and difficult thing to meet with you, O Heaven! Please give me just one word!"
Vast Obscure said, "Ach! The nourishing of the mind! Just stay in the state of non-doing and all things will transform themselves. Drop your body away, vomit out your precise powers of hearing and vision, sink yourself into the forgetting of things, become vastly merged in fluidity and darkness, unleash your mind and release your spirit until you are left like a still and silent desert, like there is no soul in you. All things throng and flourish, but each returns to its root. Each returns to its root, and yet they do not know it! Mixed and blended, in chaos and confusion—as long as they live they are never separated from it! If they knew it, they would then be separated from it! They do not ask its name, they do not spy out its character: thus do all things generate themselves!"

-from Chapter 11: "Being There and Giving Room" in Zhuangzi: The Complete Works (Brook Ziporyn, trans)

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