Radiance: Glow Of Unknowing

PARAPHRASING DOGEN: Zen practice: To study the self=To forget the self=To be actualized by/inhabit the ten thousand things=To drop away body and mind

But Dogen’s last point:

            (5) No trace of realization remains, and this no-trace continues endlessly.

Dogen, “Genjo Koan,” Section 5, [translation from Moon In A Dewdrop]

A heretofore unseen, certain light of awakening inhabits all, A tarnish, an inescapable mistake if you will allow, a “dharma-sticking blindness.”

And yet, perhaps maturation to a transcending blindness:

Ignorance and awakening as undistanced—a persistent glow of unknowing

Reaching this point, when you observe closely, even if you use a thousand eyes you do not find a particle of anything that can be called skin, flesh, bones or marrow; there is nothing to divide into mind, cognition, and consciousness…. Therefore it has been said, “When you see, there is not a single thing.”

            Keizan, Transmission Of Light

The mountains, rivers, earth, grasses, trees, and forests, are always emanating a subtle, precious light, day and night, always emanating a subtle, precious sound, demonstrating and expounding to all people the unsurpassed ultimate truth.

            It is just because you miss it right where you are, or avoid it even as you face it, that you are unable to attain actual use of it.

Yuansou, from “Expedients and Reality,” in Thomas Cleary, Zen Essence