Question
DOGEN says: “There are no illusions in the entire world, because there is nothing that is not immediately Buddha, just as it is. We are unaware of this, however, because of our inability to cut illusion off at its root, and find ourselves in its blinding, continual grip… Yet the whole world has no original nature, because it is only the eternal now.”
QUESTION: How do you explain a universe that is Buddha yet has no original nature???
Alain Kaisser
Master Kosen’s answer
Here again, this is a specific teaching Master Dogen gave his disciples during zazen to address a particular point of the teaching. We cannot take it literally or remove it from its context, or it becomes incomprehensible. As it happens, I explain it in my book The Five Degrees of Awakening.
Kosen