Dogen’s metaphor of Stone Woman giving birth to a child by night encapsulates the wisdom of seeing into the empty nature of the ‘self’ and all hence all phenomenal things.  This realisation opens out to the way of true intimacy of interconnectedness with the 10,000 things of the world.  The awakening to the interpenetration of emptiness and form emerges through the gateway of the ‘not knowing’ mind. 

This teisho was given by Subhana Barzaghi, roshi at Autumn sesshin 2023 at Kodoji.