When you first seek
dharma, you imagine you are far away
from its environs. But dharma is
already correctly transmitted; you
are immediately your original self.
When
you can’t find the Dharma, you know
it’s there. If you think you've got it,
you’ve only got one little piece.
In a certain way it’s something you can’t
miss. But we miss it all the time. It’s
like the image of reaching back for the pillow
in the night. You're Buddha nature, enlightenment
...you know it’s there somewhere, but you
don’t know where. You’re groping
for it. It’s not something you can grasp
and hold as an object. But it’s something
that’s in relationship to you all the time.
When you first seek dharma,
you imagine you are far away from its environs.
We so often approach the Dharma
with our own preconceptions: “Oh it’s
this thing. And I’m far away from it” “I
know what it is but..."
When you first look for dharma you think it’s
far away from you. You’re objectifying
it. It’s not you. It’s something
separate. You’re over here and it’s
over there. It’s quite natural, it’s
the way you begin.
What does it mean to be far from
dharma's "environs"?
Perhaps you think it’s over there. And
you’re over here.
But dharma is already correctly
transmitted; you are immediately your original
self.
You’re already Buddha. Dharma
is being transmitted all the time. It’s
not over there, you don’t have to wear
a funny hat. Dharma is being transmitted from
a teacher. But it’s already there –it's
all there. It’s not outside you. It doesn’t
mean that it can’t come from outside of
you. But it’s not outside of you.
The Genjo Koan is also about how you take your
place.
Of course when you first (come) you want things
to change, and you can see things in black and
white and there are some radical changes you
can make. Those are the easy changes. The difficult
changes are the ones you have to completely accept
— you have to become them in order to transform
them because you can’t transform them if
you’re separate from them.
