With One Heart, 
Bowing to the City 
of 10,000 Buddhas

HENG CH'AU: Wednesday, Oct. 12, 1977.

A road sign eclipsed the sun and looking up at the sky one could see the air full of tiny flying bugs and dust particles. It was like a snowstorm of living and inanimate things. Pollen, dust, insects, seeds, clouds, and birds swirling and drifting with winds. The air is full of earth. Holding up our canteen to the light you can see it is full of little organisms, much silt, and air bubbles floating in suspension. The earth and air are in the water. A fire is part earth, part water, and part air.

The furthest star and the tip of our nose touch and connect. We breathe and drink it. It becomes us. We are born, dwell, grow old and return to it. We are part of this and all of this is part of us. Seeing it like "it really is" there are not even parts or pieces, no boundaries or differences. The whole Dharma-realm is like this. Without a face or name, a past or future; level and equal "to the ends of empty space." Differences and distance exist only in our thoughts. "All Buddhadharmas are the same."

As the nature of the earth has a unity

And yet all beings dwell on it separately,

Still the earth has not the slightest thought of

Differences, and all Buddha­dharmas are the same.

As the nature of fire has a unity,

That of being able to burn all things,

The fire's flames do not distinguish among themselves

And all Buddhadharmas are the same.

Also it is like the ocean's water which has a unified nature

Yet waves by the millions, each one different.

Yet the water itself has no such variety

And all Buddhadharmas are the same.