Day of the Overseer, 37th of Spring, 525 M.E. (Betelgeuse): In Gudo Nishijima and Chodo Cross' 1994 translation of Zen Master Dogen's Shobogenzo, the opening of Genjo-Koan (The Realized Universe) reads:  

When all dharmas are [seen as] the Buddha-Dharma, then there is delusion and realization, there is practice, there is life and there is death, there are buddhas and there are ordinary beings. When the myriad dharmas are each not of the self, there is no delusion and no realization, no buddhas and no ordinary beings, no life and no death. The Buddha's truth is originally transcendent over abundance and scarcity, and so there is life and death, there is delusion and realization, there are beings and buddhas. And though it is like this, it is only that flowers, while loved, fall; and weeds while hated, flourish.

Over the years, I've both struggled to understand these words while simultaneously taking many different meanings from them. The mystery deepened for me in 2003 at a Zen meditation retreat in upstate New York's Zen Mountain Monastery. I had dokusan (one-on-one conversation) with the late Zen teacher John Daido Loori, and I confided in him that for reasons not apparent to me, it seemed like my Zen practice was losing its intensity and vigor. In response, he asked me if I was familiar with the opening words of Genjo-Koan above, and I confirmed that I was.

"In the first sentence," Daido said, "Dogen mentions 'practice,' but he doesn't bring up practice again in the next three sentences. Why is that?"

When I told him I didn't know, never really noticed that before, he advised me to spend some time thinking about it. If you don't know, Daido had transmission to teach in both the Soto and Rinzai traditions, and while Soto students like myself didn't do koan practice, Daido gave me a koan anyway but one from the heart of the Soto tradition.  

When I got back home, my Zen teacher and dharma brothers and sisters in Atlanta all agreed that Daido's was a very good question, but didn't have a quick answer for me (or wouldn't give me a quick and easy answer). Even though I don't consider myself a Zen Buddhist anymore, I've been working on that koan for the past 23 years and still think about it now.

Today, my copy of Kazuaki Tanahashi's 2012 translation of Dogen's Shobogenzo (Shambala Publications, Inc.) arrived. Upon unpacking it, my first action was to offer the box as a new plaything and sleeping spot for my cat. My second action was to read its translation of Genjo-Koan, the title of which Tanshashi translates not as "The Realized Universe," but as "Actualizing the Fundamental Point":

As all things are buddha dharma, there is delusion, realization, practice, birth [life] and death, buddhas and sentient beings. As myriad things are without an abiding self, there is no delusion, no realization, no buddha, no sentient being, no birth and death. The buddha way, in essence, is leaping clear of abundance and lack; thus there is birth and death, delusion and realization, sentient beings and buddhas. Yet in attachment blossoms fall, and in aversion weeds spread.

Although still enigmatic, this language is much clearer to me, although "practice" still shows up only in the first sentence and not again later. 

(Spoiler alert): My unenlightened understanding of the answer to Daido's question is the first sentence, which starts with all things (or "the myriad things" or "dharmas") being examined from a subjective point of view, so they can be identified as this or that, or as Dogen catalogs them, "delusion, realization, practice, life and death, buddhas and sentient beings." But when looked at from an absolute or enlightened point of view, things no longer have an individual identity and then there's no this or that. But to Dogen, practice was enlightenment, so he doesn't say there's no practice in the absolute as that would be like saying "there's no practice in practice." The third sentence is from a transcendental point of view, rising above dualities like scarcity and abundance, which is likewise an enlightened understanding so again practice is not mentioned. And the paragraph closes with a fourth and final sentence which is from a practical point of view. In other words, when we resolve that the myriad dharmas both exist and don't exist, we can see the world as it actually is, with its weeds and flowers and our preferences and dislikes.

Can't wait to read the other 1,200 pages of this book.