When all things are the Buddha Dharma, there is illusion and enlightenment, practice, birth death, Buddhas and sentient beings.
When all things are without self, there is no illusion or enlightenment, no birth or death, no Buddhas or sentient beings.
The Buddha way is originally beyond any fullness and lack, and for that reason, there is birth and death, illusion and enlightenment, sentient beings, and Buddhas.
Yet for all that, flowers fall amid our regret and yearning, and hated weeds brow apace.
From The Heart of Dogen’s Shobogenzo, Suny Press, 2002
Norman Waddell and Masao Abe, translators
Photos by Rosa Bellino