In an evening talk, Dogen said, "In the tradition of the patriarchs, the true way of understanding dharma talks on Zen practice is to gradually reform what you have known and thought by following your teacher’s instruction.

"Even if up to now, you have thought that a buddha has excellent characteristics like Shakyamuni or Amitaba, radiates a halo, has the virtue of preaching the dharma and benefiting living beings, you should believe your teacher if he says that buddha is nothing but a toad or an earthworm, and throw your former ideas away. However, if you look for some excellent characteristics, a halo, or other virtues of a buddha on the toad or the earthworm, you still have not reformed your discriminating mind. Just understand what you see right now is buddha. If you continually reform your discriminating mind and fundamental attachment in this way according to your teacher’s instruction, you will naturally become one with the Way.

"Students today, however, cling to their own discriminating minds. Their thinking is based on their own personal views that buddha must be such and such; if it goes against their ideas, they say that buddha cannot be that way. Having such an attitude and wandering here and there in delusion, searching after what conforms to their preconceptions, few of them ever make any progress in the Buddha-Way.

"Suppose that you have climbed to the top of a hundred-foot pole, and are told to let go and advance one step further without holding bodily life dear. In such a situation if you say that you can practice the Buddha-Way only when you are alive, you are not really following your teacher. Consider this carefully."

"Wandering here and there, searching after what conforms to their preconceptions" certainly sounds like the sort of spiritual smorgasbording that many people do today. When we read that passage during the discussion period following Monday Night zazen, we remarked how similar students 800 years ago were to we students of today.

"The Buddha-Way" refers simultaneously to dao, or do, the Eight Fold Path; that is, the way leading to enlightenment, and to dao, the Buddha's enlightenment itself. Therefore, practicing the various activities on the path leading to enlightenment is the same as the goal of following that path. This is why Dogen said that practice and enlightenment are one.

It is said that the immobile person stuck at the top of a hundred-foot pole should advance one step further. Then he will realize that the whole world in ten directions is his true body. Getting stuck at the top of the pole is the dilemna in which we find ourselves in this world of samsara. Even though we're at the top, our teacher tells us to keep climbing, and we must trust the teacher even at the cost of our own sense of self preservation. Advancing that extra step is dao, practice. The realization is dao, enlightenment. These two things are not separate.