Genjokoan

When everything is seen as the Buddha Way, there are things like awakening and confusion, practice, life and death, Buddhas and ordinary people. When everything is seen as having no fixed Nature, there is no confusion and no awakening, no Buddhas and no ordinary people, no birth and no ending.

From the beginning, the Way is beyond something or nothing, more or less. And yet, things appear and disappear, there is confusion and awakening, there are ordinary people and Buddhas. Even so, people don’t like flowers falling, or weeds growing. Trying to realise this through ‘Me’ is confusion. When things themselves realise It, that is awakening.

To clearly see confusion is awakening. To be confused about awakening is to be an ordinary person. Some people go beyond even awakening, while others keep deepening their confusion. When a Buddha is a Buddha, they don’t need to think, “I am a Buddha.” They fully live it.

Body and mind together meet the world, form and sound arrive as one. But this is not like a reflection in a mirror, or the moon in water. If you hold to one side, the other disappears.

To study the Way is to study yourself. To study yourself is to forget yourself. To forget yourself is To be realised by all things. To be realised By all things is to drop body and mind. Your own and others’. No trace of awakening remains, and this traceless awakening continues endlessly. When You look for the Way outside yourself, you move away from it. When the Way is truly received, Your true self appears at once.

In a boat, if you watch the shore, it looks like the shore is moving. If you look at the boat, you see the boat is moving. In the same way, if you look from a confused mind, you think things are fixed and permanent. When you return to what is real, you see nothing has a fixed self.

Firewood becomes ash. It does not go back to being firewood. But don’t think ash is just what comes after, or firewood as what came before. Firewood is fully firewood. Ash is fully ash. Each stands complete with its own before and after.

People die and do not return to life. But we do not say life turns into death. This is called ‘Not Becoming.’ Death does not turn into life. This is called ‘Not Ending.’ Life is fully life. Death is fully death. Like winter and spring, but don’t think winter becomes spring.

Awakening is like the moon reflected in a puddle. The moon appears to be in the water, but it does not get wet. The water is not disturbed by the moon. Light fills the whole sky, yet rests in a single drop of water. Awakening does not burden a person. Do not make it into a problem. A single drop of dew does not contain the vast sky, yet the whole moon is there.

When the Way is not fully lived, you think, “I Understand. I’m done.” When the Way is truly present, you see what is still lacking. Sail out into the open ocean, where no land is visible, and it looks like a perfect circle. But the ocean is not round. Its depth and qualities are without limit. To us, it appears as one wide expanse of water But that is only how we see it. All things are like this. They appear differently depending on how you see. To see clearly, you must go beyond one view.

Don’t flatten mountains and oceans into one view. See them from every side. And see this not just out there, but here, in a single drop. Fish live in water, and find it endless. Birds live in the sky, and find it without limit. They are never separate from it. When their need is great, they use much. When their need is small, they use little. They use it completely, freely. But if a bird leaves the sky, it dies. If a fish leaves the water, it dies. Water is life for fish. Sky is life for birds. and also fish are life in the water, birds are life In the sky.

Practice and awakening are like this. But if a fish tries to live in the sky, or a bird in the water there is no life. When this is clear, awakening is lived in daily life. Then every action is the expression of Awakening.

This Way is not big or small, not self or other, not past or present. It is exactly as it is. When you practice and realise this, each thing is fully known, each action fully lived. There is a place where the Way is realised and nothing is missing. But the mind cannot grasp it even if it comes all at once, it is never exhausted.

A monk asked a Master Hotetsu, “The nature of wind is constant and reaches everywhere, so Why use a fan?” The Master said, “You know it is constant, but not what ‘reaching everywhere’ means.” The monk Asked, “What does it mean?” The Master only fanned himself. The monk bowed.

To say, “No need for the fan, the wind is already everywhere,” is to miss it. Because the wind never stops, the fan matters. Because the Way is complete, practice matters and because of this, the wind of the Way turns The earth to gold and the rivers to sweet milk.