FOR THOSE WHO HAVE THE ABILITY
THE DIRECT LAST CONCEPTUALIZATION OF THE EXPERIENCE OF EMPTINESS
This may arise from a noise, a shooting star, or the sudden unexpected rush of a torrent. Once again, it is important for the student to be constantly ware that EMPTINESS is the natural state of all things mirrored within apparent illusions.
In fact it was the late Ku-Xin-Shan that experienced this rushing torrent suddenly when walking in the woods and understood the Last Conceptualization of the Experience of Emptiness.
Dwelling thus, with these Emptiness Experiences, without setting this as a target to be brought into the "sitting Contemplation" itself during contemplation, the great joy of the mind and the latent impuse to act will provoke the entry, when it is appropriate, beyond the last Conceptualization.
This is the Gateway to the Awakening by way of forms.
Examine the following spontaneous generations of Emptiness of Dogen.
Ashes as ashes have after and before. Just as ashes do not become logs again after becoming ashes, man does not live again after death. So not to say that life becomes death is a natural standpoint of Buddhism. So this is called no-life.
To say that death does not become life is the fixed sermon of the Buddha. So this is called no-death.
Life is a position of time, and death is a position of time . . . just like winter and spring. You must not believe that winter becomes spring -nor can you say that spring becomes summer. When a man gains Awakening, it is like the moon reflecting on water: the moon does not become wet, nor is the water ruffled.
Even though the moon gives immense and far-reaching light, it is reflected in a puddle of water. The full moon and the entire sky are reflected in a dewdrop on the grass. Just as Awakening does not hinder man, the moon does not hinder the water.
Just as man does not obstruct Awakening, the dewdrop does not obstruct the moon in the sky. The deeper the moonlight reflected in the water, the higher the moon itself. You must realize that how short or long a time the moon is reflected in the water testifies to how small or large the water is, and how narrow or full the moon.
When the true law is not fully absorbed by our body and mind, we think that it is sufficient. But if the right law is fully enfolded by our body and mind, we feel that something is missing. For example, when you take a boat to sea, where mountains are out of sight, and look around, you see only roundness; you cannot see anything else. But this great ocean is neither round nor square. Its other characteristics are countless.
Some see it as a palace, other as an ornament. We only see it as round for the time being within the field of our vision: this is the way we see all things. Though various things are contained in this world of enlightenment, we can see and understand only as far as the vision of a Zen trainee. To know the essence of all things, you should realize that in addition to appearance as a square or circle, there are many other characteristics of ocean and mountain and that there are many worlds. It is not a matter of environment: you must understand that a drop contains the ocean and that the right law is directly beneath your feet.
When fish go through water, there is no end to the water no matter how far they go. When birds fly in the sky, there is no end to the sky no matter how far they fly. But neither fish nor birds have been separated from the water or sky from the very beginning. It is only this: when a great need arises, a great use arises; when there is little need, there is little use. Therefore, they realize full function in each thing and free ability according to each place.
But if birds separate themselves from the sky they die; if fish separate themselves from water they die. You must realize that fish live by water and birds by sky. And it can be said that the sky lives by birds and the water by fish, and those birds are life and fish are life. You probably will be able to find other variations of this idea among men, although there are training and enlightenment and long and short lives, all are modes of truth itself. But if after going through water, fish try to go farther, or if after going through the sky, birds try to go farther they cannot find a way or a resting place in water or sky.
If you find this place, your conduct will be vitalized, and the way will be expressed naturally. If you find this way, your conduct is realized truth in daily life. This way and place cannot be grasped by relative conceptions like large and small, self and others - neither are they there from the beginning nor emerging now. They are there just as they ought to be.
Because the way and place are like this if, in practicing Buddhism, you pick up one thing, you penetrate one thing; if you complete one practice, you penetrate one practice. When deeply expressing this place and way, we do not realize it clearly because this activity is simultaneous with and interfused with the study of Buddhism.
You must not think that upon gaining enlightenment you can always become aware of it as personal knowledge. Although we are already awakened, what we intimately have is not necessarily expressed, and we cannot point it out definitely.
Zen master Pao-ch'ih was fanning himself one summer day when a passing priest asked: The nature of wind is stationary, and it is universally present.
Why do you then use your fan, sir?
The Zen master replied: Though you know the nature of wind is stationary, you do not know why it is universally present.
The priest asked, Why then is the wind universally present?
The master only fanned himself, and the priest saluted him.
Awakening through true experience and the vital way of right transmission are like this. Those who deny the need for fanning because the nature of wind is stationary and because the wind is sensed without the use of a fan understand neither the eternal presence of the wind nor its nature.
Because the nature of wind is eternally present, the wind of Buddhism turns the earth to gold and ripens the rivers to ghee.