{"id":8620,"date":"2025-09-26T08:22:48","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T15:22:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/?p=8620"},"modified":"2025-09-26T08:23:27","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T15:23:27","slug":"hsu-yun-an-exquisite-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/2025\/09\/26\/hsu-yun-an-exquisite-truth\/","title":{"rendered":"Hsu Yun – An Exquisite Truth"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Exquisite Truth
\nby Hsu Yun<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

This is an exquisite truth:
\nSaints and ordinary folks are the same from the start.
\nInquiring about a difference
\nIs like asking to borrow string
\nwhen you\u2019ve got a good strong rope.
\nEvery Dharma is known in the heart.
\nAfter a rain, the mountain colors intensify.
\nOnce you become familiar with the design of fate\u2019s illusions
\nYour ink-well will contain all of life and death.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a> \u2014 from The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology)<\/a>, Edited by Ivan M. Granger<\/font><\/p>\n


\/ Image by Alain Bonnardeaux<\/a> \/<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n

I like what that opening statement says:<\/p>\n

This is an exquisite truth:
\nSaints and ordinary folks are the same from the start.<\/i><\/p>\n

Whether we\u2019re talking about inspired reformers or shining examples of enlightenment, our instinct is to elevate great souls as unique phenomena. We assume they are somehow other than us. But the liberating and challenging truth is that saints are the same as everyone else. The only difference, if we want to call it a difference, is that they don\u2019t cloak their nature as most of us have learned to do. We all have that same steady glow within us. A saint is simply someone who doesn\u2019t damp it down.<\/p>\n

Understood this way, the spiritual journey is not one of crushing effort to acquire virtues, to build wisdom, and to learn love. We already have all of that in abundance. The only work necessary is to let go of the assumptions that keep our true nature hidden.<\/p>\n

Once you become familiar with the design of fate\u2019s illusions
\nYour ink-well will contain all of life and death.<\/i><\/p>\n

I think these are the lines I respond to most. I don\u2019t know about you, but I spent so much of my life as a teenager and young adult feeling disappointed with where I found myself in the world. I wanted something profound, adventurous, bursting with meaning. Instead, I had a very ordinary lower middle-class American upbringing. I sabotaged my college education and decided to search for something deeper. Most of that search was a painful flailing about, but it did bring me adventures, both internal and external. I lived on Maui for several years. I lived high up in the Rocky Mountains. I\u2019ve been homeless. I\u2019ve had friends in wheelchairs, friends with wealth. I\u2019ve known hippies and bikers and techies and farmers.<\/p>\n

While all of that makes for good stories, that ache for something extraordinary just fell away the moment I first settled into a sense of spiritual opening. With that dawning of peace, I also found rest\u2026 and a profound sense of self-acceptance. It wasn\u2019t that I had somehow changed into someone new and extraordinary. Instead, I felt profoundly myself for the first time, profoundly my ordinary self. And I can\u2019t describe how blissful that recognition of ordinariness is. I no longer felt the constant need to struggle after the extraordinary; the simple and the plain stood revealed as a stunning work of art filling every day.<\/p>\n

These lines by Hsu Yun about \u201cfate\u2019s illusions\u201d remind me of how I spent the first three decades of my life struggling against my circumstances to find a fate with meaning, only to discover that the struggle was unnecessary. All I had to do was open my eyes. In every corner of the world, in every life, great and humble, the entire mystery of life and death can be found.<\/p>\n

After a rain, the mountain colors intensify.<\/i><\/p>\n


\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/a>Recommended Books: Hsu Yun<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n\n

<\/p>\n

\n\n\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

<\/center>
\n<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology)<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nA Drifting Boat: Chinese Zen Poetry<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nA Pictoral Biography of the Venerable Master Hsu Yun<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nEmpty Cloud: The Autobiography of Chinese Zen Master, Hsu Yun<\/a><\/small><\/td>\n<\/a><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n\n
\n\"Hsu<\/a>\n<\/td>\n\nHsu Yun<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

China (1839 \u2013 1959) Timeline<\/a>
\nBuddhist<\/a> : Zen \/ Chan<\/a>
\n<\/a><\/a><\/em>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

<\/p>\n

The Venerable Master Hsu Yun was born in 1839 or 1840 in the Guanzhou region of China. <\/p>\n

When he was 13, he declared that he wanted to join a Buddhist monastery, but his father refused to allow it. He eventually went against his father\u2019s wishes and became an ordained monk at age 20, in 1859.<\/p>\n

He had a naturally ascetic temperament and often refused even the minimal food of a monk. He later went on a three year solitary retreat into the forest where he sustained himself primarily on wild greens and pure stream water.<\/p>\n

Hsu Yun traveled quite a bit in his life, teaching in many parts of China and Southeast Asia. He is credited by many with revitalizing Buddhist practice throughout much of the region, which was showing signs of degeneration and decline in the period leading up to and following the communist revolution.<\/p>\n

Although he attained immense respect, Hsu Yun remained supremely humble and simple in his lifestyle. He chose to live the final years of his long life quietly in his monastery\u2019s cow shed.<\/p>\n

More poetry by Hsu Yun<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An Exquisite Truth by Hsu Yun This is an exquisite truth: Saints and ordinary folks are the same from the start. Inquiring about a difference Is like asking to borrow string when you\u2019ve got a good strong rope. Every Dharma is known in the heart. After a rain, the mountain colors intensify. Once you become […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[40,112,448,893,255,87],"class_list":["post-8620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","tag-buddhist-poetry","tag-chinese-poetry","tag-color","tag-heart","tag-hsu-yun","tag-rain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8620"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8621,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8620\/revisions\/8621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}