"Even if we were to take the grasses, trees, and so forth that people see and regard them as insentient, grasses and trees are not matters for ordinary thinking to determine. Consider some of the reasons. Forests in the world of heavenly beings are clearly special, and not at all the same as the forests of China and its environs. Grasses and trees of the sea are different from the grasses and trees of the mountains. Moreover, the sky has forests, clouds have forests, and hundreds of grasses and thousands of trees are born and mature amid fire and wind. In general there are those that have been studied as sentient; there are those that have not been taken as insentient. Some grasses and trees are human-like or animal-like. The sentient and insentient are not yet clarified. When it comes to the trees, rocks, flowers, fruits and water of the hermits, for example, even when they do not doubt what they see, it is hard for them to explain it in words. Don't conclude with a categorization that says that because you saw some of the grasses and trees of China, and because you are familiar with the grasses and trees of Japan, the inexhaustible words in all directions must be like this too." EIHEI DOGEN - Teachings of the Insentient.

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bernard hemensley

whilst sitting

in the loft-house 

at the coming of dawn

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