Three Steps, No Steps

The monkey is reaching for the moon in the water.
Until death overtakes him he'll never give up.
If he'd let go the branch and disappear in the deep pool,
The whole world would shine with dazzling pureness.

-Hakuin, "The Monkey"

Overwhelmed, exhausted, all thought and emotion beaten out of me, I lost my sense of self, the heartbeat I heard was the heart of the world, I breathed with the mighty risings and declines of the earth, and this evanscence seemed less frightening than exalting. Afterward, there was the pain of loss - loss of what, I wondered, understanding nothing.

-Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard

To learn the Buddha’s truth is to learn ourselves. To learn ourselves is to forget ourselves. To forget ourselves is to be experienced by the myriad dharmas. To be experienced by the myriad dharmas is to let our own body and mind, and the body and mind of the external world, fall away.

Dogen, "Genjo-Koan," Shobogenzo