ZenLife Blog
The Conversation Doesn’t Take Place
There is a famous koan in our Zen tradition about Bodhidharma meeting Emperor Wu. This strange fellow from India blows in on a large Dharmakaya wind and presents himself at court. He must have cut an odd figure in his ragged robes and sandals amidst the formality and finery of the Emperor’s palace.
After Awakening
This is the crux of the whole Genjokoan. He’s saying that when you look at your reflection in water, there’s a tipping point: either the water’s transparent or it’s murky and reflective like a mirror. It doesn’t gradually become a mirror. It’s either a mirror or it isn’t. Dogen is using this as a metaphor: when you drop off the body-mind, when you forget the self, you become a mirror that reflects the dharma.