‘If someone asks “What is the principle of the buddhas’ realization of the truth?” we say “It is like someone who falls to the ground getting up on the ground.” Mastering this [principle], we should penetrate and clarify the past, we should penetrate and clarify the future, and we should penetrate and clarify the very moment of the present. “Great realization and nonrealization; returning to delusion and losing the state of delusion; being restricted by realization itself and being restricted by delusion itself”: each of these is the truth that some one who falls to the ground gets up relying on the ground. It is an expression of the truth in the heavens above and everywhere under the heavens, is an expression of the truth in the Western Heavens and the Eastern Lands, is an expression of the truth in the past, present, and future, and is an expression of the truth of old buddhas and new buddhas. This expression of the truth is never imperfect in expression, and it does not lack anything in expression.
Even so, it seems [to me] that only to understand the words like that, without also understanding them in a way which is not like that, is to fail to master these words. Although the expression of the truth of an eternal buddha has been transmitted like that, still, when [eternal buddha] listens as eternal buddha to the words of the eternal buddha, there should be an ascendant state of listening. Though never spoken in the Western Heav ens and never spoken in the heavens above, there is another truth to be ex pressed. It is that if those who fall down on the ground seek to get up by rely ing on the ground, even if they spend countless kalpas, they will never be able to get up. They can get up by means of just one vigorous path. That is, those who fall down through reliance on the ground inevitably get up relying on the void, and those who fall down through reliance on the void inevitably get up by relying on the ground. Unless it is like this, getting up will, in the end, be impossible.’ (Shobogenzo Immo)
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