In our busy daily lives we don’t care about the moon. But when we sit in zazen, we see the moon, the mind moon, and take care of it, cultivate it.
Then, it starts to shine brighter and rounder, and eventually it becomes the full moon, illuminating the whole world, giving light, gravity, and life.
Tsuki, usually written as ?, is “the moon” in Japanese. But when it’s written in a special way, ??, it means “total function,” and expresses the Buddha mind. Lately we’ve been reading the Tsuki (??) volume of the Shobogenzo, written by Dogen.
One of the passages he quotes reads:
The Zen master Pan-shan said:
“The mind moon is lone and round.
The light swallows all forms.
The light is not the reflected forms.
The forms are neither found.
Both light and forms unfound.
Then what is this one indeed?”
The moon is always connected to everything in gravity, light, and life. It’s not separated from anything. When it reaches anything, it becomes one with it. The thing it reaches becomes its own self, as if the moon has swallowed it whole. So, it’s not outside. In this way all forms, all sense objects, are not outside, but a unified one.
So, there is no subject and object. This is full function. The mind, life, and light work in this way, if in full function. If not partial or limited, there is limitless life, light, and love in one world of clear crystal.
The dark crescent or new moon cannot illuminate, see, and embrace things well. But when the moon mind is in full function, it penetrates throughout the whole world, separated from nothing, in perfect pure peace and free full function.
When we cultivate our minds, we find that the mind and this world in the ten directions is one unified ball of clear crystal, in purity and peace.