How It Is

“To learn the Buddha’s truth is to learn ourselves. To learn ourselves is to forget ourselves. To forget ourselves is to be experienced by the myriad dharmas. To be experienced by the myriad dharmas is to let our own body-and-mind, and the body-and-mind of the external world, fall away. There is a state in which the traces of realization are forgotten; and it manifests the traces of forgotten realization for a long, long time.”

—Dōgen, from the Genjo-Koan; Shobogenzo.

⁵ Yeshua answered, “Yes, indeed, I tell you that unless a person is born from water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God. ⁶ What is born from the flesh is flesh, and what is born from the Spirit is spirit. ⁷ Stop being amazed at my telling you that you must be born again from above! ⁸ The wind blows where it wants to, and you hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it’s going. That’s how it is with everyone who has been born from the Spirit.”

—The Gospel of John, Chapter 3; The Complete Jewish Bible translation

Not knowing

where we come from

or where we are going—

Forgetting all the things

we ever thought we knew:

we follow invisible,

indelible traces

vanishing

in the wind of realization;

losing

ourselves to be found;

absent travelers

in the breathing Mist—

Pleased to be going Nowhere.