Absolute, Relative, and Enlightenment are illuminated, and their inter-relations displayed in Great Master Dogen’s Kannon fascicle. It invites us to “examine both the imagining of night from [the perspective of] the day, and the time when it is night as night. You should examine this completely, [considering] time that is neither day or night.” What does all this mean, and what does it have to do with the subject.
It turns out that night, is “not just the night of humans“, and in Buddhism, is a metaphor for the absolute. Night means a place of no distinctions, no forms, no thing standing out. At night everything is one. To examine night, from the perspective of day, is to investigate the absolute from an outside, or relative world, that of dualities, such as night and day.
Examining night as night, is to be in the absolute, the place that is beyond, the world of Night Eyes. To complete this examination we consider a time that is neither night or day. This is the merging of both the absolute, and the relative worlds.
Each and all the subjective and objective spheres are related,
and at the same time independent.
Related, yet working differently.
Though each keeps its own place
...
The absolute works together with the relative,
like two arrows meeting in mid air.
(Identity of Relative and Absolute)
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