People take their selves (egos) as their origin,

But the true origin is the mind—the clue to all.

Once the mind is there, one does not fail;

If the mind is absent, one loses the roots of life.

If you can’t prevent this disease, why brood on

How it has happened that you are negligent

In cleaning up the mirror of your good self?

Not reading devotedly the Prajnaparamita

Or the Diamond Sutra would make even a buddha

Or a bodhisattva be taken ill. As for my origin,

It is doomed to be harassed and troublesome,

But the worldly affairs are not always well, too.

I am not yet able to get rid of all conventions

Chase after me all the time. The other day

I mourned the death of a friend of mine, today

I’ve escorted my master to his burial-mound. . .

All day long I've been unable to take a break—

My heart is like a sucked orange—my whole body

The rhythmic chanting in my mind: “Namas

Amitabha! Namas Amitabha! Namas Amitabha! . .”