Question: Although it is said that everyone inherently possesses the Ground of Original Nature and that it is fully realized in each of us, no one has ever seen its form.

Where is it located? Is it in the body, or is it in the mind? Or is the entire body-mind the Ground of Original Nature? Or is it somewhere else, separate from the body-mind?

Answer: An ancient master said, “Without leaving where it is, it is eternally clear and serene. When seeking, know that it cannot be found.”

The Ground of Original Nature is not in the body-mind, nor is it outside of the body-mind. It is not correct to say that the entire body-mind constitutes the place of Original Nature. It is not sentient being nor is it insentient being, nor is it the wisdom of the buddhas and sages.

Yet from out of it are born the wisdom of the buddhas and sages, the body-minds of all beings, and everything, including all the lands of the world. For this reason, it is provisionally referred to as the Ground of Original Nature.

Question: If Original Nature is not to be found in either mundane forms or supramundane principles, how can one possibly attain it?

Answer: This concern, common among people who wish to practice Zen, is based on an inadequate understanding of what the term “Original Nature” signifies. For example, if Original Nature were described to you as something like a worldly art, you would naturally wonder if you were talented enough to learn it.

If it were described as a transcendental doctrine, you would worry whether you were intelligent enough to grasp it. However, having heard that Original Nature has nothing to do with either mundane or the supramundane, it is senseless to wonder how to reach it.

Reaching the Ground of Original Nature is not like traveling from the countryside to the capital, or from Japan to China. Rather, it is as though you were asleep in your home, dreaming of enduring the sufferings of hell or enjoying the pleasures of paradise, then having a friend who is not sleeping tell you, “The hell and the paradise that you are seeing are nothing but illusions in your dreams. In your own actual home, neither of them exists.”

If, upon hearing these words, you continued to believe that the events in your dreams were real, then you would pay no heed to your friend. Instead, you would continue trying to escape your dream-sufferings and prolong your dream-pleasures.

In this way, you would remain under the influence of your dream experiences and never awaken to Original Nature. Even if, in your dreams, a good teacher convinced you that you had a peaceful home of your own, you would still remain within the overall dream, unable to let go of what you experience there. Thus, you might ask the teacher how to reach this home of yours.

“Should I go there by climbing these mountains and fording the rivers beyond? Should I learn to fly, then cross the mountains and fording the rivers through the air? Or you might ask, “Is this home of mine part of the natural world or separate from it? Should I consider the mountains, rivers, and earth to be this home just as they are?”

Such questions all arise because you haven’t awakened from the overall dream.

However, even if you haven’t awakened from this dream, if you realize that everything you see and do are simply images in a dream, and therefore see as though blind and hear as though deaf and give rise to no thoughts of choice or discrimination, then you are basically the same as a person who has awakened. You are someone who has attained faith in the realm of reality.

The Buddhadharma is similar to this. In Original Nature there are no traces of sacred and mundane, no domains of pure or defiled. It is only because the dream of karmically conditioned consciousness arises through the agency of ignorance that the realms of “pure” and “defiled” appear in the midst of formlessness, and that distinctions between “sacred” and “profane” are perceived in the midst of the unconditioned.

If we regard ourselves as deluded, we run about from east to west seeking fame and fortune, and we are overcome with sorrow if we fail to find them. If we regard ourselves as wise, we become arrogant and look down upon everyone else.

Deceived by these perverted views, we have no faith in Original Nature. The false domain of the dream world has, in other words, confused our minds so that we cannot accept the realm of reality.

In the midst of all this, there are occasional people of superior capacities who, although recognizing that notions like “sacred” and “mundane” or “pure” and “defiled” are nothing but ephemeral forms floating in karmic consciousness, and that none of these things exist in Original Nature, are nevertheless susceptible to deception by illusory appearances since they have yet to attain the great awakening.

Because they haven’t let go of the self-attachments that cause them to regard themselves as deluded beings, they long for enlightenment and aspire to eloquence and supernatural powers. They end up arguing over which methods of training are correct and judging who bested whom in mondo, like dreaming people who, while aware that everything in their dreams is itself a dream, can’t stop talking of right and wrong, gain and loss.

This is because they haven’t awakened from the overall dream and are thus taken in by the world it creates.

People of the highest capacities, even if they haven’t experienced great enlightenment, clearly perceive that all calculations involving self and other or body and mind are nothing but the deluded workings of karmic consciousness, and thus they neither disdain transmigration nor seek emancipation.

Those who view things in this way are people of true insight. However, they, too, fall into error if they rest content in this insight. The Surangama Sutra says:

“The subtle nature is perfectly clear and beyond all names and forms. From the beginning, neither the world nor sentient beings exist.”

All of the Mahayana sutras speak in the same way. Why then do you not believe this and instead exhaust yourselves rushing about in external seeking?

Original Nature is immanent in everyone; those who have not realized it remain unaware of its presence despite using it every day. For that reason the buddhas and patriarchs, in their great compassion, indicate it to us with meticulous care.

Even if our shallow karmic roots prevent us from directly realizing Original Nature, if we have faith in the teachings of the Buddhas and the patriarchs, and if we apply ourselves to practicing these teachings, how can we fail to benefit?

Muso Soseki (1275-1351)

Excerpted from Dialogues in a Dream – The Life and Zen Teachings of Muso Soseki – translated by Thomas Yuho Kirchner 2015

Waking up is a great phrase to illustrate realization. In the beginning of practice, when we are first learning meditation, and in some schools, the other techniques that have been used over time, it is easy to feel like what we seek is far away from where we currently are.

And then there are all the enlightenment stories that, if we’re not careful, tend to set us up in comparing mind, you know the one where you just never measure up.

Despite those distractions, we also learn from the masters who were constantly turning our attention back to right where we are now. To turn the light back inside.

The simplicity of this Way is almost too good to be true. Letting go of attainments, comparing mind, and the need to know where we are in our practice is a kind of purification that we each will do for ourselves.

However, even if you haven’t awakened from this dream, if you realize that everything you see and do are simply images in a dream, and therefore see as though blind and hear as though deaf and give rise to no thoughts of choice or discrimination, then you are basically the same as a person who has awakened. You are someone who has attained faith in the realm of reality.

Like a breath of fresh air, we exhale in relief, returning to where we have always been, right here! And our actions? Motivated by compassion and generosity of spirit, the guideposts are all written inside us. We know what right action is without needing to be told.

Do we really need to know where we are in practice, or is it truly better not knowing? Perhaps, in reality, it is best to let go of that measuring stick and accept that where we are is just where we need to be.

Waking up together from this dream,
Elana, Scribe for Daily Zen