Original Face

"The Sixth Ancestor was pursued by Ming the head monk as far as Ta-yü Peak. The teacher, seeing Ming coming, laid the robe and bowl on a rock and said, 'This robe represents the Dharma. There should be no fighting over it. You may take it back with you.' Ming tried to lift it up, but it was as immovable as a mountain. Shivering and trembling, he said, 'I came for the Dharma, not for the robe. I beg you, lay brother, please open the Way for me.' The teacher said, 'Don’t think good; don’t think evil. At this very moment, what is the original face of Ming the head monk?' In that instant Ming had great satori. Sweat ran from his entire body. In tears he made his bows saying, 'Beside these secret words and secret meanings, is there anything of further significance?' The teacher said, 'What I have just conveyed to you is not secret. If you reflect on your own face, whatever is secret will be right there with you.' Ming said, 'Though I practiced at Huang-mei with the assembly, I could not truly realize my original face. Now, thanks to your pointed instruction, I am like someone who drinks water and knows personally whether it is cold or warm. Lay brother, you are now my teacher.' The teacher said, 'If you can say that, then let us both call Huang-mei our teacher. Maintain your realization carefully.'"

 - Dajian Huineng (638 - 713)
Case 23 of Mumonkan

Ceasing to Stir

"Just let your minds become void and
environmental phenomena will void themselves;
let principles cease to stir and events
will cease stirring of themselves.
...
Ordinary people look to their surroundings,
while followers of the Way look to Mind,
but the true Dharma is to forget them both.
...
I assure you that one who comprehends
the truth of 'nothing to be attained' is
already seated in the sanctuary where
he will gain his Enlightenment."

- Huang Po (? - 850)
The Zen Teaching of Huang-Po:
On the Transmission of Mind

Immaculate Liberation

"Seeing mountains and rivers differs according to the type of being seeing them. There are beings who see what we call water as a jeweled necklace. This does not mean, however, that they see a jeweled necklace as water. How, then, do we see what they consider water? Their jeweled necklace is what we see as water. Or, again some see water as wondrous flowers, though it does not follow that they use flowers as water. Hungry ghosts see water as raging flames or as pus and blood. Dragons and fish see water as a palace or a pavilion, or as the seven treasures or jewels. Others see water as woods and walls, or as the dharma nature of immaculate liberation, or as the true human body, or as the physical form and essence of mind. Men see these as water. And these different ways of seeing are the conditions under which water is dead or alive. Thus, what different types of beings see is different; and we should reflect on this fact. Is it that there are various ways of seeing one object? Or is it that we have mistaken various images for one object?

...

It is not the case simply that there is water in the world; within the realm of water there are worlds. And this is true not only within water: within clouds as well there are worlds of sentient beings, within wind, within fire, within earth there are worlds of sentient beings. Within the dharma realm there are worlds of sentient beings, within a single blade of grass, within a single staff there are worlds of sentient beings. And wherever there are worlds of sentient beings, there, inevitably, is the world of buddhas and ancestors."

- Dogen (1200 - 1253)
"Mountains and Water Sutra" in Shobogenzo

Leaving a Trace

"The enlightened mind is like a bird in flight that leaves no trace of its path. People will say, 'A bird just flew by.' In their mind, there is a trace of the bird’s path. This is attachment. For the enlightened practitioner, that moment is already gone—the bird has left no trace of its flight. Like the bird, from moment to moment the enlightened practitioner’s actions do not leave any trace."

- Sheng Yen (1931 - 2009)
The Method of No-Method

Myriad Worlds of the Universe

"I consider the positions of kings and rulers as that of dust motes. I observe treasure of gold and gems as so many bricks and pebbles. I look upon the finest silken robes as tattered rags. I see myriad worlds of the universe as small seeds of fruit, and the greatest lake in India as a drop of oil on my foot. I perceive the teachings of the world to be the illusion of, magicians. I discern the highest conception of emancipation as golden brocade in a dream, and view the holy path of the illuminated one as flowers appearing in one's eyes. I see meditation as a pillar of a mountain, Nirvana as a nightmare of daytime. I look upon the judgment of right and wrong as the serpentine dance of a dragon, and the rise and fall of beliefs as but traces left by the four seasons."

- Siddhārtha Gautama (c. 563 or 480 BCE)

Original Realization

"Because earth, grass, trees, walls, tiles, and pebbles in the world of phenomena in the ten directions all engage in buddha activity, those who receive the benefits of the wind and water are inconceivably helped by the buddha's transformation, splendid and unthinkable, and intimately manifest enlightenment. Those who receive these benefits of water and fire widely engage in circulating the buddha's transformation based on original realization."

- Dogen (1200 - 1253)
 Treasury of the True Dharma Eye

Joyfully Reaching the Stream

 "Follow the way of virtue.
Follow the way joyfully
Through this world and on beyond!
...
The fool laughs at generosity.
The miser cannot enter heaven.
But the master finds joy in giving

And happiness is his reward.
...

And more -
For greater than all the joys
Of heaven and of earth,

Greater still than dominion

Over all the worlds,

Is the joy of reaching the stream."

- The Dhammapada

Experience, Emptiness, and Luminosity

"One of the points in the traditional Buddhist way of viewing the question of what reality is or what truth is, is that in fact we cannot perceive reality, we cannot perceive truth. This is not to say that there is no reality or truth, but rather that whatever we perceive, if we happen to perceive anything, we see in accordance with some particular language or approach, and we color it with our own styles and ways of looking at things.

...

The nonexistence of ego is not a philosophical matter, but simply a matter of perception. Perception is unable to trace back its existence {to an origin}, so it becomes just sheer energy, without a beginner of the perception and without any substance. It is just simple perception. Perception on that level has three aspects.

...

The first is perception as experience. In this case, experience does not refer to the experience of self-confirmation, but to experience in the sense of things as they are. White is white, black is black, and so forth.

...

Then there is {the second aspect}, the perception of emptiness, which is the absence of things as they are. Things have their room; things always come along with a certain sense of room, of space. Even though they may appear within the complexities of the overcrowdedness of experience, they provide their own space within the overcrowdedness. Actually, overcrowdedness and room are the same thing; overcrowdedness is room in some sense. This is because there is movement involved, because there is dance and play involved. At the same time, there is a shifty and intangible quality, and because of that the whole thing is very lucid.

...

There is experience, then space or emptiness, and then the final aspect, which is called luminosity. Luminosity has nothing to do with bright visual light. It is a sense of sharp boundary and clarity. There is no theoretical or intellectual reference point for this, but in terms of ordinary experience, it is a sense of clarity, a sense of things being seen as they are, unmistakably.

...

So there are these three aspects of perception: the sense of experience, the sense of emptiness, and the sense of luminosity. The point is that with that level of perception {that contains the three aspects}, one is able to see all the patterns of one’s life. Whether the patterns of one’s life are regarded as neurotic or enlightened, one is able to see them all clearly. That seems to be the beginning of some glimpse of the mandala perspective, the beginning of a glimpse of the five buddha energies."

- Chogyam Trungpa (1939 - 1987)
Orderly Chaos: The Mandala Principle

Multitudinousness Minds

"Mahamati, since the ignorant and simple-minded, not knowing that the world is only something seen of the mind itself, cling to multitudinousness of external objects, cling to the notions of being and non-being, oneness and otherness, bothness and non-bothness, existence and non-existence, eternity and non-eternity, and think that they have a self-nature of their own, all of which rises from the discriminations of the mind and is perpetuated by habit-energy, and from which they are given over to false imagination. It is all like a mirage in which springs of water are seen as if they were real. "

- Lankavatara Sutra (c.350–400 CE)

Actualization

"To study the Buddha Way is to study the self; to study the self is to forget the self; to forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the body and mind of others drop away. No trace of realization remains and this no trace continues endlessly."

- Dogen (1200 - 1253)

Wonder Beyond Words

"To be alive in this beautiful,
self-organizing universe --
to participate in the dance of life
with senses to perceive it,
lungs that breathe it, organs
that draw nourishment from it --
is a wonder beyond words."

- Joanna Macy (1929 - 2025)

Note. Sadly, another "light of an enlightened eye" and an "incandescent light" has been extinguished. Eco-philosopher, systems thinker, and Buddhist scholar, Joanna Macy passed away on 19 July 2025. Her 1991 monograph, Mutual Causality in Buddhism and General Systems Theory, had a profound and lasting influence on me as physicist and photographer. Here is a wonderful interview that Macy had with Emergence magazine in 2018.

Mountain is a Mountain

"Mountains have long been a geography for pilgrimage, place where people have been humbled and strengthened, they are symbols of the sacred center. Many have traveled to them in order to find the concentrated energy of Earth and to realize the strength of unimpeded space. Viewing a mountain at a distance or walking around its body we can see its shape, know its profile, survey its surrounds. The closer you come to the mountain the more it disappears, the mountain begins to lose its shape as you near it, its body begins to spread out over the landscape losing itself to itself."

"On climbing the mountain the mountain continues to vanish. It vanishes in the detail of each step, its crown is buried in space, its body is buried in the breath. On reaching the mountain summit we can ask, 'What has been attained?' - The top of the mountain? Big view? But the mountain has already disappeared. Going down the mountain we can ask, 'What has been attained?' Going down the mountain the closer we are to the mountain the more the mountain disappears, the closer we are to the mountain the more the mountain is realized. Mountain’s realization comes through the details of the breath, mountain appears in each step. Mountain then lives inside our bones, inside our heart-drum. It stands like a huge mother in the atmosphere of our minds. "

"Mountain draws ancestors together in the form of clouds. Heaven, Earth and human meet in the raining of the past. Heaven, Earth and human meet in the winds of the future. Mountain mother is a birth gate that joins the above and below, she is a prayer house, she is a mountain. Mountain is a mountain."

- Joan Halifax (1942 - )
The Fruitful Darkness: A Journey Through
Buddhist Practice and Tribal Wisdom

Formless

"The Chán tradition ascribes the origins of Chán in India to the Flower Sermon, the earliest source for which comes from the 14th century. It is said that Gautama Buddha gathered his disciples one day for a Dharma talk. When they gathered together, The Buddha was completely silent and some speculated that perhaps The Buddha was tired or ill. The Buddha silently held up and twirled a flower and his eyes twinkled; several of his disciples tried to interpret what this meant, though none of them were correct. One of The Buddha's disciples, Mahākāśyapa, silently gazed at the flower and broke into a broad smile. The Buddha then acknowledged Mahākāśyapa's insight by saying the following:

I possess the true Dharma eye,
the marvelous mind of Nirvāṇa,
the true form of the formless,
the subtle Dharma gate that does not
rest on words or letters but is a special
transmission outside of the scriptures.
This I entrust to Mahākāśyapa."

- The Flower Sermon
Quoted from the Chinese Buddhist Encyclopedia

Cosmic Journey

"We are travelers on a cosmic journey — stardust, swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity. Life is eternal. But the expressions of life are ephemeral, momentary, transient. Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, once said, This existence of ours is as transient as autumn clouds. To watch the birth and death of beings is like looking at the movements of a dance. A lifetime is like a flash of lightning in the sky, Rushing by like a torrent down a steep mountain. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share. This is a precious moment, but it is transient. It is a little parenthesis in eternity. If we share with caring, lightheartedness, and love, we will create abundance and joy for each other. And then this moment will have been worthwhile."

- Deepak Chopra (1946 - )

Life Implicit

"Buddhist philosophy, notion of mutually dependent origination, everything originates together, mutually dependent. it is close to implicate order, which says that everything comes out of a good and everything is interrelated, and that underlying it there is no substance that can be defined. that also give rise to karma, but karma too becomes changeable since even our own state of mind is part of the whole, and when it changes, the whole changes, so the karma changes.

...

The holomovement which is 'life implicit' is the ground both of 'life explicit' and of 'inanimate matter', and this ground is what is primary, self-existent and universal. Thus we do not fragment life and inanimate matter, nor do we try to reduce the former completely to nothing but an outcome of the latter.

...

Thought has produced tremendous effects outwardly. And, as we'll discuss further on, it produces tremendous effects inwardly in each person. Yet the general tacit assumption in thought is that it's just telling you the way things are and that is not doing anything—that 'you' are inside there, deciding what to do with the information. But I want to say that you don't decide what to do with the information. The information takes over. It runs you. Thought runs you. Thought, however, gives the false information that you are running it, that you are the one who controls thought, whereas actually thought is the one which controls each one of us. Until thought is understood—better yet, more than understood, perceived—it will actually control us; but it will create the impression that it is our servant, that it is just doing what we want it to do. That's the difficulty. Thought is participating and then saying it's not participating. But it is taking part in everything. Fragmentation is a particular case of that. Thought is creating divisions out of itself and then saying that they are there naturally."

 - David Bohm (1917 - 1992)

Mossy Path

"Whence are we born into this world? Wither lies the way by which we may return thither? So deign you to ask in your quest for that knowledge now lost to you. Yet I implore you, seek not that which lies within your good self in some place far removed from yourself. The several teachings that the Buddha has bequeathed us, different one from another though they may seem, have, as he himself has taught us, but a single source. People’s desires and aspirations are as different as their faces, and thus the Buddha teaches through a variety of Expedient Means. Yet the Way by which one endeavors to attain enlightenment, whether one be of high station or low, can be no other than to penetrate to the very source of consciousness. The rain falls alike on all plants and trees; and though the season of their bloom may be early or late, all blossom forth in colorful splendor. Likewise is it with the many different teachings of the Buddha; they are like the dewdrops, having but a single hue of their own, [but appearing to differ] because the cast of people’s minds is not constant. The body, be it that of one either deep in sin or one exalted in virtue, ends ultimately in the same form, as dew upon the mossy path. That which knows no limits, from the distant past into the future, which has neither beginning nor end, lies within your own honored mind. If it be tied by earthly cares and attachments, then never will it escape from the Three Worlds but must wander aimlessly through the Six Realms. In the dark of night, the three thousand greater worlds are far removed and invisible to the Corporeal Eye. Yet open the Mind’s Eye and that far-off world of enlightenment may be seen unobstructed. So you see, there is no need for you to become a monk and relinquish your reign. Even in your present exalted position, if you just set your mind upon it, you can attain enlightenment."

- Reading The Tale of Genji:
Sources from the First Millennium

Talking to a Rock

"Hogen, a Chinese Zen teacher,
lived alone in a small temple in the country.
One day four traveling monks appeared
 and asked if they might make a fire
in his yard to warm themselves.

While they were building the fire,
Hogen heard them arguing about
subjectivity and objectivity.
He joined them and said:
'There is a big stone. Do you consider it
to be inside or outside your mind?'

One of the monks replied:
'From the Buddhist viewpoint everything
is an objectification of mind, so I would
say that the stone is inside my mind.'

'Your head must feel very heavy,' observed Hogen,
'if you are carrying around a stone like that in your mind.'"

- "The Stone Mind," Shaseki-shu (Collection of Stone and Sand)

"Yunyan asked a monk what he was doing.
The monk replied, 'I’ve been talking to a rock.'
Yunyan said, 'Did it nod to you (indicating that it understood you)?'
When the monk didn’t reply, Yunyan answered for him:
'It nodded to you before you even said anything.'"

- Yunyan Tansheng (780-841)

Serene Illumination

"Serene illumination, or just sitting, is not a technique, or a means to some resulting higher state of consciousness, or any particular state of being. Just sitting, one simply meets the immediate present. Desiring some flashy experience, or anything more or other than 'this' is mere worldly vanity and craving... Just sitting does not involve reaching some understanding. It is the subtle activity of allowing all things to be completely at rest just as they are, not poking one's head into the workings of the world."

- John Daido Loori (1931 - 2009)
 The Art of Just Sitting

Beyond Mere Doctrine

"All beings by nature are Buddha,
As ice by nature is water.
Apart from water there is no ice;
Apart from beings, no Buddha.
How sad that people ignore the near
And search for truth afar:
Like someone in the midst of water
Crying out in thirst,
Like a child of a wealthy home
Wandering among the poor.
...
Go far beyond mere doctrine.
Here effect and cause are the same,
The Way is neither two nor three.
With form that is no-form,
Going and coming, we are never astray,
With thought that is no-thought,
Singing and dancing are the voice of the Law.
Boundless and free is the sky of Samádhi!
Bright the full moon of wisdom!
Truly, is anything missing now?
Nirvana is right here, before our eyes,
This very place is the Lotus Land,
This very body, the Buddha"

- Hakuin Ekaku (c.1686 - c.1769)
 The Essential Teachings of Zen Master Hakuin

Theory of Emptiness

"The theory of emptiness… is the deep recognition that there is a fundamental disparity between the way we perceive the world, including our own existence in it, and the way things actually are.

...

According to the theory of emptiness, any belief in an objective reality grounded in the assumption of intrinsic, independent existence is untenable. All things and events, whether material, mental, or even abstract concepts like time, are devoid of objective independent existence. To possess such independent, intrinsic existence would imply that things and events are somehow complete unto themselves and are therefore entirely contained.

...

If on the quantum level, matter is revealed to be less solid and definable than it appears, then it seems to me that science is coming closer to the Buddhist contemplative insights of emptiness and interdependence.

- Dalai Lama XIV, (1935 - )

The Universe in a Single Atom