This is my translation as it appears in my book The Dark Side of the Mirror/ Forgetting the self in Dogen's Genjo Koan
1. Birth and death, practice and daily life, delusion and enlightenment, ordinary beings and all the Buddhas; such is the Buddhas’s Dharma of all Dharmas.
2. As the myriad Dharmas are other than self, when one is in the midst, there are no creating and destroying, no sentient beings and all Buddhas, no delusion and enlightenment.
3. Out of abundance and lack springs forth the original Dao of Buddha, and for this there is making and destroying, delusion and enlightenment, and there are living Buddhas.
4. So it is and nevertheless, blossom falls bittersweet and weeds spread amidst woeful resignation.
5. How deluded, to think oneself the teacher of myriad Dharmas! When myriad Dharmas come forth to train and enlighten the self, that is enlightenment.
6. All Buddhas are busy greatly enlightening delusion.
7. Those who are greatly deluded about enlightenment are ordinary beings.
8. So people who are enlightened are continually being enlightened within enlightenment.
9. Those in the middle of delusion get more deluded.
10. When All Buddhas really are All Buddhas the self does not need to know All Buddhas.
11. So, thus, we can say, enlightened Buddhas go on enlightening Buddhas.
12. Though one may deeply understand the forms of body and mind, though one may deeply understand what body and mind are saying, still this is not like a reflection in a mirror, nor like the moon in water, which is only realized on one side when the other side is dark.
13. To comprehend what we call the Buddha Dao means to comprehend the self.
14. To comprehend the self is to forget the self.
15. Forgetting self is confirmed by the myriad Dharmas.
16. This being confirmed by myriad Dharmas causes body-and-mind – and even the body-and-mind of others – to fall away.
17. This coming to a stop is the enlightenment-trace, the evidence of enlightenment.
18. This ‘stopping’, the trace of enlightenment, is what causes one to be going forth for ever and ever.
19. If, when a beginner seeks the Dharma, he positions himself as far away and nowhere near to the Dharma’s edge,
20. then, when the Dharma is correctly transmitted to him, he is soon playing his part like a natural.
21. When a person goes riding in a boat, if he turns his eye towards the shore, he erroneously thinks that the shore is moving.
22. If he observes the boat closely, he will see that it is the boat that is going forward.
23. If we try to discern the myriad Dharmas from the perspective of our confused idea about body and mind, we make the error of thinking that it is our mind and our own nature that are permanent.
24. However, if we go back to studying the acts of our own daily life (an ri) intimately we shall see the myriad Dharmas themselves are not therein.
25. Then the Dao and its proper performance (Li) will become clear.
26. Firewood becomes ash.
27. It cannot become firewood again.
28. However, we should not see it as ash after and firewood before.
29. We should understand the Dharma position of firewood: it has a before and an after, the before and after exist, but it is cut off from them.
30. As for the Dharma position of Ash, it has a before and an after.
31. The firewood has become ash completely and cannot become like firewood again.
32. After the person dies away, he does not come alive again.
33. So, the definitive Buddhist teaching is not to say that life becomes death, but rather to say ‘no appearance’ or ‘no birth’ (fu sho).
34. Death cannot become life.
35. The definitive transmission of the Dharma Wheel is to say this is ‘no disappearance’ (fu metsu).
36. Life is one position in time and death is also one position in time, just like, for example, winter and spring. Do not think that winter becomes spring. Do not say that spring becomes summer.
37. A person’s satori is like the moon lodging in water: the moon does not get wet and the water is not broken, but it is like a vast light lodging in the smallest bit of water - the whole moon and firmament, even in so much as a dewdrop on a blade of grass.
38. Just as the moon does not pierce the water, so satori does not break the person.
39. Just as the sky and moon in the dewdrop is not hindrance, so a person’s satori is not impediment.
40. As for the depth (of illumination), it shall measure as the height (of the Dharma / moon).
41. Whether for an hour or a moment, look closely and you will see, in great waters or in small, the full scale of the sky and the moon.
42. When Dharma is not yet in body and mind, when practice is not fully rigorous, one thinks that he is sufficiently in the Dharma already.
43. However, when the Dharma is in body and mind completely and sufficiently, a person feels a sense of lack.
44. For instance if you are in a boat out of sight of land and look in all four directions, you just see a circle, but the fact is that you are not seeing what is really there: this great sea is not a circle, nor a square, the virtues of the ocean are inexpressible.
45. According to the scope of one’s eye it is like a palace, like a necklace of jewels, or anything at all.
46. Just for now, one only sees a circle.
47. The myriad Dharmas are like that too.
48. Conditioned by the mundane world, or by ideals, we make assumptions, but we only apprehend what falls within the capacity of our eye.
49. In order to understand the myriad Dharmas on their own terms, we have to do more than just see squares and circles.
50. The merits of the ocean and the merits of the mountains are inexhaustible, not to mention those of the incomparable domains of the four directions.
51. One should know it is like this right here, even in a single drop.
52. Fish swim in the water, but however far they go there is no end to the water.
53. Birds fly in the sky, but however far they go there is no end to the sky.
54. However, fish and birds, now, as of old, never free themselves from the water or sky; they just make great or small use of it according to their need, so, there is no such thing as using up every morsel or exploring every single crevice.
55. If a bird lives the sky it dies straight away.
56. If a fish leaves the water it dies straight away.
57. If you are a fish, investigate the water.If you are a bird investigate the sky.
58. When you are a bird, you have to be a bird.When you are a fish, you have to be a fish.
59. Birds live the life of the sky (emptiness - ku).
60. But then to go further beyond is enlightenment practice and is the way of the old living sage.
61. So, thoroughly investigate the water and, later, you will be investigating the sky.
62. If the fish or the bird tries to go through to the other domain it cannot do so.
63. The place is attained when the doing of daily activity (an ri) is genjō kōan.
64. This Way, this place, is not a matter of greatness nor smallness, not about self (ji) and other (ta). It precedes the ‘is not’ in the ‘is’.
65. Therefore, it is not in the now-manifest, yet, nonetheless, it is.
66. Here, in this way of penetrating and pervading, one cannot know some knowable edge, cannot get the ultimate knack of the Buddhadharma
67. except by living the same life and practising the same practice, simply just as they are.
68. One should not expect to have intellectual knowledge of one’s attainment. Although evidence of enlightenment is immediately apparent to the eye, the secrets of the heart are not necessarily known to the mind.
69. Zen Master Baoji was using a fan.
70. A passing monk came by and asked, “The nature of wind (Fū shō) is that it is always abiding (Jō jū). There is not place that the always abiding nature of wind does not encompass. What is the priest still holding onto, that he needs to use a fan?”
71. The teacher answered, “Even though you just know that the nature of wind is to always abide (fū shō jō jū) and there is nowhere that it does not reach, you do not know the performance of the Way (Dao-Li).”
72. The monk said, “How is it that [knowing that] ‘there being no place it does not reach’ you do not know the performance of the Way (Dao-Li).”
73. The master simply carried on using the fan.74. The monk bowed.
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