All-Inclusive Way

Deeply thinking of it,

I and other people,

There is no difference

As there is no mind

Beyond the Mind.

Ikkyu Sojun

And so,

Free yourself from forms and return to the original ground of being.  From this ground, life issues forth, but let go of this too.

Break open

A cherry tree

And there are no flowers.

But the spring breeze

Brings forth myriad blossoms!

….Our Law is the Flower of the One Vehicle…  It is the original ground of our being—all is there.  All things are without beginning and thus all-inclusive.  The eight senses, the four seasons, the four great elements (earth, water, fire, wind), all originate in emptiness, but few realize it.  Wind is breath, fire is animation, water is blood; when the body is burned it becomes earth.  Yet these elements, too, are without beginning, and do not abide.

Ikkyu Sojun, from Gaikotsu [Skeletons]

We can conceptualize this way that our body—“the original body”—actualizes “the Original Place” that is “all,” but then, as Ikkyu admonishes, “Do not search / For what cannot be found.”   If the “all” cannot be found, then what to do? 

When the “original body” actualizes the “Original Place,” Ikkyu admonishes, “…we need not fear / Losing the Way.”

Without a bridge

Clouds climb effortlessly

To heaven…

Many paths lead from

The foot of the mountain

But at the peak

We all gaze at the

Single bright moon.

Ikkyu Sojun, from Giakotsu