Dharma Rain - Manzan Dohaku
Our Ancestors
Dogen
Genjokoan
A person getting realization is like the moon being reflected in water; the
moon does not get wet, and the water is not broken. Though the light is wide
and great, it is reflected in a foot or an inch of water. The whole moon and
the whole sky are reflected in a dew-drop on a blade of grass and are reflected
in a single drop of water. Realization does not break the individual, just
as the moon does not pierce the water. [6]
Fukanzazengi
Zazenshin
Pivotal essence of every buddha,
Essential pivot of every patriarch.
Beyond thinking, realizing,
Beyond complication, realization.
Beyond thinking, realizing:
The realizing is naturally immediate.
Beyond complication, realization:
The realization is naturally a state of experience.
The realizing is naturally immediate:
There has been no taintedness.
The realization is naturally a state of experience:
There has been no rightness or divergence.
There has been no tainting of the immediacy:
That immediacy is without reliance yet it gets free.
There has been no rightness or divergence in the experience:
That state of experience is without design yet it makes effort.
The water is clean, right down to the ground,
Fishes are swimming like fishes.
The sky is wide, clear through to the heavens,
And birds are flying like birds.
“Nangaku says, ‘Polishing to make a mirror.’ We should clarify
the meaning of these words. In polishing to make a mirror Buddhist truths are
always present and the realied Universe is present: it is never an empty pretense.
Though tiles are tiles and mirrors are mirrors, we should know that when we
are striving to master the art of polishing, [polishing] possesses a limitless
abundance of distinguishing features. It may be that even the eternal mirror
and the clear mirror are made into mirrors by polishing a tile. If we do not
know that mirrors derive from polishing a tile, we are without a Buddhist patriarch’s
expression of the truth. [7]
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