GENJO KOAN

When all dharmas are the Buddhadharma, there is illusion and enlightenment, there is practice, there is birth and death, there are ordinary beings and there are buddhas. When these myriad dharmas are without self there is no illusion, no enlightenment, no generation, no extinction, no ordinary being, no buddha. Because the Buddha way is unconstrained by dualities such as fullness or loss, it can be available as both illusion and enlightenment, as both generation and extinction, as both ordinary being and buddha.

Even with recognizing this, still we begrudge the fading of a flower, and are dismayed by the flourishing of weeds.
To practice and attempt to confirm existence by conveying a self to it is illusion. For existence itself to come forward practicing, confirming you, is enlightenment. Buddhas are those who thoroughly awaken the delusion. Ordinary beings are those deluded with an idea of awakening. Some also are enlightened beyond enlightenment, and some deluded even in the midst of delusion. A buddha may not necessarily even notice that they are buddha, nonetheless an actualized buddha continues to actualize as buddha.

There is just seeing forms and hearing of sounds with body and mind as one, making them intimate, intimately their own, fully knowing them. This knowing is not like a reflection in a mirror, or like the moon on the water. With the recognition of one side, the other side is dark-ness. To learn the Buddha way is to learn the self. To learn the self is to forget self. To forget self is to be confirmed by all existence, and to be confirmed by all existence is to effect the dropping off of body-mind identity, and dispersion of identities beyond it as well. With no trace of enlightenment remaining, a traceless, graspless enlightenment continues endlessly. But at the very moment one seeks this dharma, it escapes the seeking. The dharma has already been correctly transmitted. It is the immediate recognition of one’s original face.

It is like this - if someone were out in a boat and turned to see the shore, they might assume that the shoreline was moving. But if they examined the situation, examined their boat, they would see it is the boat itself that moves. It is same when in attempting to confirm existence with mistaken views, such as attributing permanence to body and mind. If we simply return to ourselves, and make daily activity intimate, intimately its own, then the reason why within all myriad dharmas there is no self will be clear to us.

Once firewood has turned to ash it will not again turn back to firewood. But it should not be presumed that firewood is before or that ash is after. The dharma stage of firewood completely possesses a before and after, and also is fully free of before and after. The dharma-stage of ashes likewise embodies a before and after. Just as firewood does not return, so beings do not return to their lives after death. The teaching does not say life becomes death, but rather that life is without origin. The teaching does not say that death becomes life, but rather that death is non-extinction. Death is its own time, and life is its own time, as are the winter and the spring. We do not suppose that the winter itself becomes the spring, or say that spring itself is now summer.

Enlightenment is received like the moon reflected on the water. The moon does not get wet. The water is not broken. For all the immensity of the moon’s height it rests upon a small patch of water. The moon and the sky in their entirety settle on a single dewdrop in the grass, on a mere drop of water. Enlightenment presents no harm to a person just as the moon would not harm the water, and the person does not obstruct enlightenment, any more than a dewdrop would obstruct the moon or sky. In the depths of that dewdrop resides the full measure of the moon’s greatness. With this, consider also the duration of light, the water’s greatness or smallness, the aspect of the moon, and the vastness of the sky.

When truth has not yet filled body and mind, we may feel complete. But when the dharma has thoroughly filled body and mind, we know something is missing. Again, it is as if we were out in a boat, past the view of any mountains. Then the expanse of the ocean might appear to be round. But it is neither round nor square. Inexpressible virtues still remain as “ocean.” It could even be considered a palace or a necklace of jewels, but for that moment the eye sees only a circle. The experience of phenomena is commonly like this.
Aspects of this dusty life as well as a pure life are perceived only to the extent that practice and the eye of insight will penetrate. In our understanding of things, as well as being round or square, the ocean may manifest in infinite variety. There are worlds there, in all directions. There are worlds also within us, and worlds even in one drop of water.

When a fish swims in water, in the swimming there is no end to water. When a bird flies in the sky, in the flying there is no end to sky. This is because from the beginning they are in accord with the water or the sky. With extensive activity comes extensive use, and with modest activity, less use. Yet essentially and everywhere, the full use is made of all that is functioning, and all that is functioning turns and moves freely. Leaving the water or leaving the sky would immediately be the leaving of life, for with the fish, water is life, and for the bird, sky is life. Also for the sky, the bird is life. For the water, the fish is life. Life is bird and sky. Life is fish and water. It is the same with practice, with realization, and with everything in life’s duration.

Like the bird and fish, we must first manifest in our element before extending further, or we will not find our way or place. There is just the arrival at this place. Everyday activity is the manifestation of absolute reality. The way is everyday activity actualizing everything.
The way, this place, is not large or small, not self, not other, not from before, not newly emerging. It is just this. The Buddha way is within the meeting of one dharma is the fulfill- ment of that one dharma, and the full engagement of one action is the fulfillment of all activity.

So here is the place. It is here that the way opens. With no distinct boundaries to realization, simultaneously knowing and not knowing come forward, and simultaneously we practice with Buddha as Buddha. Realization is not an acquisition. It is not necessarily manifest. Nevertheless it is here, immediately before us, and it is inconceivable.

Once the teacher Bao-chi was fanning himself and a monk asked: “The nature of the wind is to abide and to pervade everywhere, so why do you then fan yourself?” Bao-chi said “You may know that the wind abides, but you do not yet understand ‘pervading everywhere.’” “What is the meaning?” the monk asked. Bao-chi simply continued to fan himself. The monk then bowed in understanding. This is the actualization of the Buddhadharma, the vital transmission of the way. Not to see the function of the wind within the function of the fan, or fan within wind, is to miss the seeing of either wind or fan.
The dharma-wind abides, and it pervades everywhere. So from this broad, golden earth, and from the intimate home of the Buddha, the wind, this way, is offered like a ripened, nourishing, medicinal drink, and extends outward into the vastness like a long, flowing river.