It may be necessary to pass through an experience of emptiness as a “great negation” of the ego and its reifying attachments, and as the realization of absolute equality and equanimity. But even emptiness must not be grasped as a purportedly “perspectiveless perspective” in which one abides. In the all-embracing “one taste” of perfect equality, the differences between singular things are obscured. Here, too, “emptiness must empty itself” and allow for distinctions, such that true nonduality is a matter of “neither one nor two” (fu-ichi fu-ni 不一不二). The universal truth of emptiness is not an overarching perspective that negates, but rather a pervading principle that enables the interplay between unique yet interconnected beings. In its “suchness,” each thing, person, animal, or event is neither an independent substance nor an indistinct portion of an undifferentiated totality: rather, it is a unique perspectival opening within the dynamically interweaving web of the world.
Hence, even though one may perceive the ocean (or world) as a vast empty circle, Dōgen goes on to write: “Nevertheless, the great ocean is not circular, and it is not square; the remaining virtues [or qualities] of the ocean are inexhaustible. It is like a palace [for fish]. It is like a jeweled ornament [to gods]. It is just that, as far as my eyes can see, for a while it looks like a circle.” Dōgen is drawing here on the traditional Buddhist notion that different sentient beings experience the world in different manners, depending on the conditioning of their karma. He is likely alluding specifically to the following commentary on the Mahāyāna-saṃgraha: “The sea itself basically has no disparities, yet owing to the karmic differences of devas, humans, craving spirits, and fish, devas see it as a treasure trove of jewels, humans see it as water, craving spirits see it as an ocean of pus, and fish see it as a palatial dwelling.” Dōgen writes elsewhere that one “should not be limited to human views” and naively think that what you view as water is “what dragons and fish see as water and use as water.”
Bret W. Davis, The Philosophy of Zen Master Dōgen: Egoless Perspectivism
