From Mushin:
In a Dharma Hall Discourse, Dogen Zenji asked, “If pure gold is not refined a hundred times, how will it reveal its radiance?” Relating this to Dharma practice, we can regard it as an apt image for continuous practice. To realize and manifest our own radiance, the radiance innate to all of life. Our practice is not a process that’s done only once, or even a hundred times, but is an open-through-all-times way of investigation. Allowing for the flowing radiance in presence, the pure gold of awake awareness refines in zazen and all activities. We tap tranquility in stillness and activity. We’re always looking into the gold in our own experience? It doesn’t just mean sitting zazen each day, though that’s fundamental for effecting alive practice. The gold is not just found in the lovely and the likeable, but in all conditions and our responses to them. Practice cultivates bringing our whole heart forward. If we are practicing wholeheartedly, we are living wholeheartedly a life as it is. Living wholeheartedly requires us to pay attention and spy the gold glinting in all conditions – appropriately, creatively, generously, patiently.