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Zazen is perfect enlightenment, the Buddha’s enlightenment.

Just sitting, in the universe itself … legs crossed and spine straight … untouched by restrictions, hindrances, obstructions or distractions … balance of body-mind … no ‘you’ to resist the world, no ‘world’ to be resisted … you are experiencing the Buddha’s enlightenment …

… just the Buddha experiencing the Buddha’s enlightenment.
No gap. Nothing more to attain.
That to be completed … all complete.
It is vital to trust in this.

What is called sitting-Zen is not learning Zen meditation. It is just a peaceful and effortless gate to reality. It is practice-and-experience which perfectly realizes the Buddha’s enlightenment. The Universe is realized, untouched by restrictions or hindrances. To grasp this meaning is to be like a dragon that has found water, or like a tiger before a mountain stronghold. Remember, true reality is naturally manifesting itself before us, and gloom and distraction vanish at a stroke. [NISHIJIMA]

The zazen I speak of is not meditation practice. It is simply the dharma gate of joyful ease, the practice-realization of totally culminated enlightenment. It is the koan realized; traps and snares can never reach it. If you grasp the point, you are like a dragon gaining the water, like a tiger taking to the mountains. For you must know that the true dharma appears of itself, so that from the start dullness and distraction are struck aside. [SZTP]

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Ceremony of Cleaning the Great Buddha, Nara, Japan
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