Genjokoan 3: Our Feet on the Ground with the Flowers and Weeds (4: Reality).

 [1] When all dharmas are [seen as] the Buddha-Dharma, then there is delusion and realization, there is practice, there is life and there is death, there are buddhas and there are ordinary beings. [2] When the myriad dharmas are each not of the self, there is no delusion and no realization, no buddhas and no ordinary beings, no life and no death. [3] The Buddha’s truth is originally transcendent over abundance and scarcity, and so there is life and death, there is delusion and realization, there are beings and buddhas. [4] And though it is like this, it is only that flowers, while loved, fall; and weeds while hated, flourish.

In this important opening section of Genjokoan, Master Dogen has contextualised the nature of Buddhism by situating it after two other fundamental views of things. This is what Nishijima Roshi called the 'three philosophies' - [1] a view based on thoughts/ philosophies and the mind [2] a view based on the absence of thoughts and values, or a materialist view of things, and [3] the view of Buddhist practice/ zazen where things can be experienced to 'leap free' from both our own thoughts and a lack or absence of thoughts, values and meaning.

Nishijima Roshi observed however that Master Dogen often takes things one step further by adding a statement that expresses, often in poetic terms, the reality of a thing or situation arising from his direct practice-experience. Master Dogen concludes this introductory statement of Genjokoan saying...

[4] And though it is like this, it is only that flowers, while loved, fall; and weeds while hated, flourish.

We will lose what we love, and we will encounter adversity in our lives. 

It may be that, if ever like Master Dogen we fully actualise the teachings and practices and bring our insight to bear on all aspects of our selves and our reality we will, after it all, remain human.

Anyone familiar with Master Dogen's zazen instruction Fukanzazengi might notice an interesting correlation between the 'three philosophies' expressed above and an important koan that he employs in the text of Fukanzazengi. I'll take a small aside from continuing with the text of Genjokoan to look at that next time.