Therefore, the ancients were indifferent to fame and fortune, quiet and far-reaching, neither complaining about poverty nor hating wealth, but for the sake of the secular, not drifting with the tide, facing the dignitaries, and sticking to their nobility like Xuefeng.
This poem is from the altar sutra of the Six Ancestors. It's the Zen words of the sixth ancestor Huineng. The Six Ancestors Tanjing was compiled by later generations according to Huineng, the sixth ancestor of Zen Buddhism.
The Six Ancestors Tanjing, the full name of which is the Mahayana Prajna Paramita Sutra of the South Zongdun School, was written by Master Huineng of the Six Ancestors at the Dafan Temple in Shaozhou. It is a classic collected by Huineng, founder of Zen Buddhism, and Fahai, his disciple. "Six Ancestors Tanjing" records Huineng's deeds of spreading Taoism and enlightening his disciples through words and deeds. Rich in content and popular in writings, it is an important basis for studying the origin of Zen thought.
The central idea of the Six Ancestors' Tanjing is the Buddhist theory of "regarding nature as Buddha" or "mind as Buddha" and the practice view of "seeing nature with an epiphany". The so-called "only the law of seeing nature is born of evil teaching." Sex refers to the possibility of all beings becoming buddhas. That is, "Bodhi is self-nature, which is pure, but with this heart, it will become a Buddha." "Although people have north and south, Buddhism has no north and south." This thought comes down in one continuous line with "all living beings know the Buddha's nature" in Nirvana Sutra.