Is it a mandarin duck
Or a seagull bobbing?
I can hardly tell:
White plumes rising and falling
Between the standing waves
This poem by Dogen is entitled ‘This very mind itself is Buddha’
When buddhists say that mind is Buddha, or world is mind, or suchlike, they don’t mean that the world is inside your head. They mean that there is no ‘inside’. Everything is this one piece of exertion/expression.
We are not caught by our imaginings, floating in front of us like gossamer, but by ‘reality’. The world is not a corpse, waiting to be identified truly or falsely. It is the illuminating cascade of momentary expression/exertion. In this moment, the duck. In this moment, the seagull. In this moment, the drumming of the rain. In this moment, the flooding of the heavens.
If you wish to lift up the head of the world, lift this head.