[Against the notion that enlightenment is a single, momentary experience.]
To study the way of the Buddha is to study your own self. To study your own self is to forget
yourself. To forget yourself is to have the objective world prevail in you. To have the objective
world prevail in you, is to let go of your 'own' body and mind as well as the body and mind of
'others.' The enlightenment thus attained may seem to come to an end, but though it appears to have
stopped this momentary enlightenment should be prolonged and prolonged.
[Against the notion that the objective world is merely a projection of one's own mind.]
When you go out on a boat and look around, you feel as if the shore were moving. But if you fix
your eyes on the rim of the boat, you become aware that the boat is moving. It is exactly the same
when you try to know the objective world while still in a state of confusion in regard to your own
body and mind; you are under the misapprehension that your own mind, your own nature, is
something real and enduring [while the external world is transitory]. Only when you sit straight
and look into yourself, does it become clear that [you yourself are changing ] the objective world
has a reality apart from you.
[The fullness of enlightenment.]
Our attainment of enlightenment is something like the reflection of the moon -in water. The moon
does not get wet, nor is the water cleft apart. Though the light of the moon is vast and immense, it
finds a home in water only a foot long and an inch wide. The whole moon and the whole sky find
room enough in a single dewdrop, a single drop of water. And just as the moon does not cleave the
water apart, so enlightenment does not tear man apart. just as a dewdrop or drop of water offers no
resistance to the moon in heaven, so man offers no obstacle to the full penetration of enlightenment.
Height is always the measure of depth. [The higher the object, the deeper will seem its reflection
in the water.]
