In meditation, all things can be experienced as one and not separable, which is the experience of nonduality. This is the source of compassion. At the same time, we discern things as separate with differences and boundaries. Dogen calls for the full experience of duality, of nonduality, and of freedom from duality and nonduality while maintaining integrity.
Snow
All my life, false and real, right and wrong entangled.
Playing with the moon, ridiculing wind, listening to birds,
many years were wasted seeing the mountain covered with snow.
This winter, I suddenly realize snow makes a mountain.
Know that water is life and air is life. The bird is life and the fish is life. Life must be the bird and life must be the fish.
When you see forms or hear sounds, fully engaging body and mind, you intuit dharma intimately. Unlike things and their reflections in the mirror, and unlike the moon and its reflection in the water, when one side is illumined, the other side is dark.
From ancient times wise people and sages have often lived on water. When they live on water they catch fish, catch human beings, and catch the way. These are all ancient ways of being on water, following wind and streams. Furthermore, there is catching the self, catching catching, being caught by catching, and being caught by the way.
There are mountains hidden in treasures. There are mountains hidden in swamps. There are mountains hidden in the sky. There are mountains hidden in mountains. There are mountains hidden in hiddenness. This is how we study.
An ancient buddha said, “Mountains are mountains, waters are waters.” These words do not mean mountains are mountains; they mean mountains are mountains.
The Point of Zazen
The hub of buddhas’ activity,
the turning of the ancestors’ hub,
moves along with beyond thinking
and is completed in the realm of beyond merging.
As it moves along with beyond thinking
its appearing is immediate.
As it is completed in the realm of beyond merging
completeness itself is realization.
When its appearing is intimate
you have no illusion.
When completeness reveals itself
it is neither real nor apparent.
When you have immediacy without illusion
immediacy is “dropping away” with no obstacles.
Realization, beyond real or apparent,
is effort without expectation.
Clear water all the way to the bottom;
a fish swims like a fish.
Vast sky transparent throughout;
a bird flies like a bird.
There is no self—no place to hide in the all-inclusive world. There is no other—just one straight rod of iron for myriad miles. Even as branches grow thus, there is only one vehicle of dharma in the entire world. Even as leaves fall thus, things abide in their conditions and there is the aspect of the world as permanent.
Mind is all things, all things are mind. Since mind is the moon, the moon is the moon. Since mind, which is all things, is completely the moon, the all-inclusive world is the all-inclusive moon; the entire body is the entire moon. Amid the “three three before and three three after” in the myriad years of this moment, what is not the moon?
Seeing with the entire eyeball is all-inclusive study. Getting all the way through is all-inclusive study. To understand whether the face skin is thick or not is all-inclusive study.
As all things are buddha dharma, there are delusion, realization, practice, birth [life] and death, buddhas and sentient beings. As myriad things are without an abiding self, there is no delusion, no realization, no buddha, no sentient being, no birth and death. The buddha way, in essence, is leaping clear of abundance and lack; thus there are birth and death, delusion and realization, sentient beings and buddhas. Yet in attachment blossoms fall, and in aversion weeds spread.
When you paint spring, do not paint willows, plums, peaches, or apricots—just paint spring. To paint willows, plums, peaches, or apricots is to paint willows, plums, peaches, or apricots. It is not yet painting spring.