This
reminds me of
another statement Dogen Zenji
made when he returned from China,
‘I have returned empty-handed, without the
smallest bit of Buddha Dharma.’ ‘Empty-handed.’
When you’ve got nothing in your hands, they are free
to be used in the best way. And, ‘without the smallest
bit of Buddha Dharma.’ In other words, everything
is the Buddha Dharma. It’s not a matter of
having it or not. This very life, as it is,
is nothing but the Buddha
Dharma itself.