Don’t try to seek yourself. Just this is it.
A Talk by Madelon Bolling (February 8, 2026)
When leaving Yunyan’s memorial event Tozan recalled asking Yunyan, “After your death if someone asks me if I can describe your reality, how shall I reply?” After awhile Yunyan said, “Just this is it.” Tozan left without saying anything more; later as he was crossing a river, he saw his reflection . . . and was thoroughly enlightened.
After seeing his reflection in the water, Tozan Zenji wrote:
Don’t try to seek yourself.
Don’t try to figure out who you are.
The “you” found in that way is far from the real you;
it is not you anymore.
But when I go on my way, wherever I turn, I meet myself.
—Book of Serenity, #49
Today we’ll consider overcoming the subject-object division, a primary hindrance to the apprehension of suchness.
This passage from Shunryu Suzuki Roshi may help us with Tozan’s koan:
“When you accept yourself as a Buddha–or understand everything as an unfolding of the absolute teaching . . . then whatever you think or see is the actual teaching of Buddha, and whatever you do is the actual practice of Buddha. Problems arise because you are trying to do something, or because you think that it doesn’t matter whether or not you do something.”
–“Just sit as yourself.” Tricycle magazine, Fall 2025
In Song of Zazen, Hakuin Zenji says:
All beings by nature are Buddha,
as ice by nature is water.
Apart from water, there is no ice.
Apart from beings, no Buddha.
I’ve recited Hakuin’s Song of Zazen hundreds of times, but it only recently occurred to me that it might literally be accurate. Apparently I’d thought it was metaphorical. If it is not metaphorical—if Hakuin’s statement is true, you and I are actually Buddha (or, awakened consciousness) by our very nature. That’s a really odd thing to say, to my mind, because I’ve spent so much time and effort to “become” enlightened—or to become that which I am not, by definition. Yet here it says, “All beings by nature are Buddha”! And in the Suzuki quote (above) from Tricycle magazine it says, “When you accept yourself as a Buddha—or understand everything as an unfolding of the absolute teaching . . . then whatever you think or see is the actual teaching of Buddha, and whatever you do is the actual practice of Buddha.”
I have trouble with “when you accept yourself as a Buddha” just because I’ve spent decades convinced that whatever I do is not acceptable, by definition. So to begin with, I prefer the phrase “When you understand everything as an unfolding of the absolute teaching.” That, at least, caters to my need for an illusion of control—that is, if and when I do x (thus, when I reach that understanding), then whatever I think or see is the actual teaching, and whatever I do is the actual practice of Buddha.” But catering to my wish for control—that itself is a problem! Because ultimately, individual control is an illusion. The idea that you can predict with certainty the outcome of a situation, well, it’s iffy to say the least. Nonetheless, if I can understand everything as an unfolding of the absolute teaching, then misunderstanding leads to misinterpretation—oh, I was wrong; must be because I didn’t understand correctly. That’s a bad analysis because if I understand everything as an unfolding of the absolute (that is, the non-context dependent) teaching, I cannot misunderstand or misinterpret!!
For years now, a phrase has kept going through my mind:
I do nothing at all—thus thinks the yogi, the knower of peace.
I thought it might be a line from one of the songs we sang in the Vedanta Society choir. That could be, if you take into consideration the liberties that a translator and song writer may take. Turns out it is from the Bhagavad Gita, chapter 5 which runs something like this:
The harmonised yogi who knows the essence of things, thinks “I do nothing”: seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, eating, moving, sleeping, breathing, speaking, giving, grasping–opening and closing the eyelids even. He is convinced that the senses move among the objects of the senses. (5.8 & 5.9)
Another translation:
(Gita ch. 5, karma yoga, verses 8-9) A person in the divine consciousness, although engaged in seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, eating, moving about, sleeping and breathing, always knows within himself that he actually does nothing at all. Because while speaking, evacuating, receiving, or opening or closing his eyes, he always knows that only the material senses are engaged with their objects and that he is aloof from them. Ch 5. Bhagavad Gita As It Is (vedabase.io)
“When you understand everything as an unfolding of the absolute teaching.” The absolute teaching “I do nothing at all” is a statement from the other side of experiencing. It is absolute since it’s independent of context, of interpretation. Having seen this as an unfolding of the absolute teaching, there is no question of it being “my insight” or in any way in a subject-object relationship with my understanding.
Another translation, from my old teacher:
The illumined soul, . . .
Thinks always: ‘I am doing nothing.’
No matter what he sees, hears, touches, smells, eats;
No matter whether he is moving, sleeping, breathing, speaking
Excreting, or grasping something with his hand,
Or opening his eyes,
Or closing his eyes: This he knows always:
‘I am not seeing, I am not hearing:
It is the senses that see and hear
And touch the things of the senses.’ Prabhavananda & Isherwood, 1954, pp.57-58.
How often do we operate under a compulsion to understand, to reach a kind of cognitive control of the situation? (I do, practically all the time!) What if we were to give it up? What would it be like to see everything as an unfolding of the absolute teaching? To understand everything as Buddha-nature? To be convinced that the senses move among the objects of the senses, with no subjective claim as a doer? If you are truly seeing whatever you see as Buddha—as awakened consciousness, not the image of a historical person—you can accept yourself, your true nature, as Buddha, as awakened consciousness.
Let’s try releasing the compulsion to understand, entering a situation—say, coming into the zendo, such that the floor, the zabutons, the zafus, benches and chairs, windows and altar, the ceiling beams, daylight and the other people here are nothing but manifest Buddha-nature? Including you, and the feel of the floor beneath your feet? Let’s jump right in and sit with that for a short time—only 15 seconds. Start (15 seconds) . . . and stop. Shall we try 30 seconds? (all we see or contact is nothing but manifest Buddha-nature) Start (30 seconds) . . . and stop.
My mind says, “nothing but manifest Buddha-nature?” How dare you imply that you know what Buddha-nature is?? The old wrestling starts with an argument—“you can’t possibly know what is meant by Buddha-nature!” Then the thinking mind jumps in with its ideas, and arguments pro- and con-. And I’m lost in logical tangles.
But in the “Discourses of Dahui” it is said: “If you truly wish to practice, just let go of everything. Know nothing, understand nothing, like one who has died the Great Death. Proceeding straight ahead in this non-knowing and not-understanding, break through this single thought.” So, how shall we implement this advice?
First—oh, already a mistake! If we’ve let go of everything, even saying “first” is a mistake, as it draws our attention in a direction, implies an order to events, not to mention implying a “should” or a direction to behave! Let’s try just sitting here, doing nothing, including not knowing, not understanding, yet somehow continuing—continue without continuing. OK? Crucial to this practice is open awareness, leaving nothing out. Thirty seconds: start (30 sec.) . . . and stop. If truly seeing whatever you see as Buddha (as open awareness leaving nothing out) you can accept yourself too, as Buddha.
Can we be present without disappearing into thought? One thing that is often neglected in this kind of practice is simply feeling the body. It is not one lump of awareness, but something like a network of sensations, or like a formation of clouds—evolving, not predetermined in shape. Now, let’s attend to these various bodily sensations without labeling them, without even noticing that they are “various.” For just half a minute, let sensation be the entirety. See if you can notice without labeling or counting or even noting for future reference. Start (30 seconds) . . . and stop. This is a taste, a chance to try non-knowing and not-understanding, to directly sample experiencing without an experiencer, without a second viewpoint from which we spin out this world. An open awareness already leaves nothing out. That’s what Dahui gestures toward when he says, “Just let go of everything.”
Also, if that’s true we can turn the quote around. Hakuin Zenji said, “All beings by nature are Buddha.” And Buddha by nature is all beings. If truly seeing whatever we see (or hear, or touch, etc.) as awakened consciousness—we can accept ourselves as nothing but awakened consciousness, as Buddha.