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little afternoon nap. While he was gone, some young monks approached Ananda and
said, “Ananda, sir. It has been a long time since we have had a Dhamma talk face to
face with the Generous One. It would be good, Ananda sir, if we could hear a Dhamma
talk face to face with the Generous One.” Ananda had told them, “You could go to the
hermitage of the brahmin Rammakassa; then you will be able to hear a Dhamma talk
face to face with the Generous One.” Now he looks over at the Buddha and tries to set
him up. “Sir, the brahmin Rammakassa's hermitage is pleasant, the brahmin
Ramakassa's place is beautiful, sir. It would be good, sir, if the Generous One were to
go to the brahmin Rammakassa's hermitage out of compassion.” The Buddha sees the
situation, sighs, slowly gets dressed, and rambles over to Rammakassa’s place to talk
with the monks.
There are images of the Buddha as numberless as are the grains of sand in
the river Ganges. What if we were to gather all of these grains of sand, pack them
together, mould and form and blast and fuse them to form a single great gleaming
glassy image of the Buddha? We still could not really see him. He lived too long
away, too far away, in almost every sense in order to be seen as he was. 
But what matters to us is what he is now. He is the continuous practice of
Awakening made available to us. 
The Eihei Koroku (1:86) records some comments made by Dogen zenji on
Jodo-e:
“Whether you have Buddha Nature or not depends upon realizing the
Knowing that is you. You have the face of the Awakened One so do as he did.
“This evening, if I step unknowingly upon this Knowing, a shit-wiping
stick leaps up and smears the total world. If I unknowingly do it again, it calls
itself ‘Sakyamuni’. If I do it again, it hits the Thus Gone in the chest, sits
down on a zafu, sees the shining of the morning star, sheds beginningless
delusion and loses its old views. Without looking as if it is worth picking up, it
manifests the thirty-two marks of greatness together with all Awakened Ones
and chants the Four Great Vows along with me.”
Do you understand what Dogen is saying? Sakyamuni Buddha has made it
possible for you to realize the Knowing that is who you are. He is made it so obvious
through this Transmission that even a piece of wood used to scrape away shit can
reveal it. If you are continuously practising, then a moment of stamping about
unmindfully causes the whole Dharma to manifest and shake you awake. The shit-
stick sits down, wakes up, manifests the forms of all the Buddhas and chants the
Four Great Vows together with you. Every colour, every form, every sound, every
moment reveals Awakening endlessly through your own continuous practice and
continuously practises you. Just becoming lost in a moment of confusion immediately
causes confusion to fall open. The whole moment, right here, does your practice.
This is what Sakyamuni Buddha has made possible for us.
He is the shape of the zafu you sit on. He is the form of your posture. He is
here in each moment that your practice moves past you and limitlessly upholds the
world of colours and forms and sounds, the great earth and open sky.