The goose choosing nutritious milk over water, the bee busily gathering pollen, are both expressing natural intelligence, you might say animal wisdom. When practicing Silent Illumination you are doing the same thing, completing the natural process of attaining wisdom. Just as the bee does not waste time looking for pollen in a dead flower, the wise practitioner does not waste time just sitting with a blank mind. Just as the bee is unsparing in its efforts, the serious practitioner works until he tastes the honey of wisdom. When the poet has brought his practice to fruition, he is transmitting and honoring the tradition of his sect. But fundamentally, what is he transmitting, and whom is he honoring? He is really transmitting the method discovered by the Buddhas, and he is honoring the Buddha-nature that is intrinsic in all sentient beings.

This practice is called Silent Illumination.
It penetrates from the deepest to the highest.


These lines speak of faith-faith in a tradition of practice that has been handed down without interruption from the Buddha onward, through countless generations. Is there anyone who can practice it and not find in it all of the Buddha Dharma ─ from the deepest to the highest?