Hsueh Feng said "Pick up the whole great earth in your fingers, and it's as big as a grain of rice". This reminds me of Bobby Darin singing "He's got the whole wide world in his hands". Zen teachers of old didn't mess around with explanations, they pointed straight at the Dharma Kaya, the light body of Buddha, and the path that Dogen lays before us of "dropping body and mind", or as the classic Zen saying goes, letting the bottom of the bucket fall out. In a grain of rice, the whole earth, in the earth, a grain of rice. Going further, toss them both out and what remains?
When you chant the four bodhisattva vows, you say "dharma gates are boundless, I vow to enter them". The koan about the grain of rice is suggesting that everything you see and hear and touch and taste and feel and know is a grain of rice, a dharma gate that invites you to throw the doors and windows of your house wide open, to let go of clinging to your sense of separates and to realize the whole world as your own body, to let your great heart enter the world. This is called illumination and function in Zen, awakening to the blessing, grace, and dynamic of form and emptiness.
Sadly, the above two paragraphs are still Zen gobbledygook. The fundamental practice of zazen is your best teacher, just sitting and being, listening and learning from your body and breath. In Rinzai Zen emphasis is placed on Koan practice and awakening. In Soto Zen and the tradition of Suzuki Roshi, we think of koans as a good thing to study, but we mostly emphasize the importance of daily pratice, of cultivating mindful living in every day life. When fruit ripens it drops to the earth, what's the use of trying to make it ripen! This is letting go, trusting your practice, teachers, sangha, and life. Cultivating an attitude of non attainment is the path of one grain of rice. Enjoy each breath as you keep you feet warm and head cool.
a grain of rice
or a flat tire
keep on truckin
Case 5: Grain of Rice
