Murderous Demon of Impermanence

Dear friends, the murderous demon of impermanence is constantly looking for our lives and will never agree to conclude peace with us! Let us hastily develop a long enduring mind to get out of birth and death. Master Yuan Miao of Kao Feng said: "If one sets a time limit for success in the Ch'an [Zen] training, one should act like a man who has fallen to the bottom of a pit one thousand chang [about two miles] deep. His thousand and ten-thousand thoughts are reduced to as single idea on how to escape from the pit. He keeps it up morning to evening and from evening to the following morning, and has no other thought. If he trains in this way and does not realize the truth in three, five or seven days, I shall be guilty of a verbal sin for which I shall fall into the hell where tongues are pulled out." ("The Ch'an Training" by Master Hsu Yun, p.42.)