“The Blue Mountain of itself remains eternally unmoved: the White Clouds come of themselves and go.”[35]
By “the Blue Mountain” is meant the Sole Reality of Mind;—by “the White Clouds,” the phenomenal universe. Yet the universe exists but as a dream of Mind:—
“If any one desire to obtain full knowledge of all the Buddhas of the past, the present, and the future, let him learn to comprehend the true nature of the World of Law. Then will he perceive that all things are but the production of Mind.”[36]
“By the learning and the practice of the True Doctrine, the Non-Apparent becomes [for us] the only Reality.”[37]
The universe is a phantom, and a phantom likewise the body of man, together with all emotions, ideas, and memories that make up the complex of his sensuous Self. But is this evanescent Self the whole of man’s inner being? Not so, proclaim the sotoba:—
“All living beings have the nature of Buddha. The Nyōrai,[38] eternally living, is alone unchangeable.”[39]
“The Kegon-Kyō[40] declares:—‘In all living creatures there exists, and has existed from the beginning, the Real-Law Nature: all by their nature contain the original essence of Buddha.’”
Sharing the nature of the Unchangeable, we share the Eternal Reality. In the highest sense, man also is divine:—
“The Mind becomes Buddha: the Mind itself is Buddha.”[41]
“In the Engaku-Kyō[42] it is written: ‘Now for the first time I perceive that all living beings have the original Buddha-nature,—wherefore Birth and Death and Nirvana have become for me as a dream of the night that is gone.’”