The Illusory Nature of Power

Text

Vạn Hạnh taught the court nobles: 'You ask me to bless the kingdom so that it will last forever. But I cannot do that, because nothing lasts forever — and the teaching of emptiness is not a teaching of despair. It is a teaching of freedom. When you know that this dynasty, like all dynasties, arises and passes away like lightning, you are freed from the prison of clinging to it. Then you can govern with clear eyes, because you are not governing for eternity — you are governing for this moment, this people, this season. That is what the dharma asks of you: not permanence, but presence.'

license: public_domain

Attribution

• Attributed To
  Vạn Hạnh

Lineage: Thiền

By Vạn Hạnh

• On the Impermanence of Dynastiesverse
• The Prophecy of the Lý Founderdialogue

From Thiền Uyển Tập Anh (Anthology of the Garden of Vietnamese Zen)

• On the Impermanence of Dynasties
• Verse Composed in Vietnamese (Chữ Nôm)
• The Duty of the National Preceptor
• The King Tests the Third Patriarch
• On Receiving the Succession
• The Dharma Is Not Separate from Mind
• Silent Transmission

Sources

• contentCuong Tu Nguyen — medieval Vietnamese Buddhism scholarship

  Cuong Tu Nguyen

  Thiền Uyển Tập Anh, Vạn Hạnh section; after Cuong Tu Nguyen, 'Zen in Medieval Vietnam' (1997), pp. 44–58, on Vạn Hạnh's teaching on impermanence and political life

  Thiền Uyển Tập Anh (Anthology of the Garden of Vietnamese Zen): The Illusory Nature of Power