The entire world of the ten directions is one bright pearl. How do you understand this?

 “Tell them ‘I Am’ sent you.”  “Cleave the tree, and I Am there.  Lift up the rock, and there you will find me.”  I have read that this is problematic for some translators because “This has never been satisactory, for when one usually lifts up a stone all one finds are worms and slugs.”  (www.gospelofthomas.info/essays/stone.html) well, you can lead a horse to water …

The entire world – the sunsets, the acts brave men and the acts of evil – ALL of it is one bright pearl.  How do you understand this?  There is no separation between you and the rest of the universe.  This is emptiness.  No separation between you and the sunset, or you and your parents.  The slugs and the worms under the rock are you too.  This is emptiness.  I heard a pastor once explain the story of the birth of Jesus as this. The point was that you find God wherever you turn, and we are to be reminded that this mystery is even amongst the shit and piss and fleas of the stable. 

But you are not the sunset, nor your parents, nor the mountains and rivers.  This is form.  The stories we tell to grapple with this, be they of the God of Abraham, the Buddha or the boson are also empty. These constructs attempt to answer questions we have and construct a whole we can contain and understand in just the smallest piece of the universe, our minds.  If this was possible, it would be a true miracle.  We do find answers to some questions and those answers may offer something pleasant for the moment.  But they do not last, so we start counting breaths again.  The buddha asked, “what lasts?”  Only this one bright pearl lasts.  how do you understand this?

If I have a soul it is in the flowers and the fish and the sunrise.  Those things will not go away. They will be forever wrapped up in this ball of a universe expanding or doing whatever it is doing that we don’t yet understand. 

The entire world is one bright pearl.

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“Go to where you are now.” 

This is the rehearsal koan.  How do I get there?  Sit.  Breathe.  How will I know I’m there?  You will not realize anything else.

“Here is the place; here the way unfolds. Do not suppose that what you attain becomes your knowledge and is grasped by your intellect.  Its emergence is beyond your knowledge.”

Here is the solitude of existence as a speck of the universe.  Be the butterfly effect. How can you not? Since you cannot help but be thus, practice it carefully. There is lightness in this great effort of practice.

Dont just do something.  Stand there.  There.

There are some things Dogen writes about where I can feel him straining to inhabit with words a place beyond description.  The trouble with words, you see, is they are not real.  They are always a beat behind.  They are a representation of something just past, a painting of an impression of a moment not present now.  What a horrible tool to teach the way, eh?  Words aren’t bad, dont get me wrong; they are great for conveying the approximate truth in everyday life, and most of the time the approximate truth is just fine.  It allows you to cook and clean and get through the day.  Nevertheless, words are imperfect instruments for conveying the dharma.  Poetry comes close.  I think poetry and koans work because they juxtapose words – items the brain ordinarily accepts as a real truth and exposes them for the liars they are, at the same time it is using them to point to the way.  Koans, and poetry, are like tai chi used on language, where the meaning of the words is used against them to the writer’s advantage.  When done right, it is a miracle to behold. 

Go to where you are now.  Once you get there, everything is obvious.

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