Everyone was gathering, and Shakyamuni Buddha was supposed to talk, and he sat with the people and simply lifted up the udumbara flower, beautifully blooming. One of the older monks gave a glance to it and smiled a big smile, like a blooming flower. Immediately, Shakyamuni Buddha announced to all, "My being of shobogenzo — nirvana-mind — is completely realized by Mahakyashapa."
It sounds strange for us. The particular picture which we can imagine feels a little strange. The udumbara blooms once in five centuries. We don't know such a flower, do we? It doesn't matter. A poppy is fine.
In the air of full moon night, we already have a smiling mind. When a person, your close friend, is arriving from a distance, that mind with which you accept your friend also cannot be explained.
We have a special feeling toward parents, toward children, to a wife, friends, teachers. How do those originate within you?
There is a world which we can see and sense with eyes, ears, nose, skin, mind. There is a world which we can see by intuition — which skips all kinds of organic functioning. And there is a world which we see only by precise, correct thinking. Especially to see the world of another person, intuition is quite correct, but it is rather weak. By mastering how another's language is used,
stretching your mind, putting it on thinking and words, you can go into another's world.
There is also a world which you create by body-movement, and you share that world with others. There is a world which you project, and you wait for people to come into you through your projection. Many artists know this, what this projection process is.
Words, dharma — we always meet with them and are puzzled constantly. Dharma is truth, and the form of truth, the sounds of truth, the shadow of truth. And yet dharma itself is empty. You cannot say, "This is it!"
If you say, "This is it," you know it is not it, though no one disagrees with you. I must say it is a hard thing to know.