Quote by Eihei Dogen: “The moon does not get wet. The water is not broken.”

When moonlight reflects on water, neither is harmed or changed by the contact. Dogen uses this image to describe enlightenment: pure awareness reflects in the mind without contaminating it, and the mind holds the reflection without losing its own nature. Contact and purity coexist.

Dogen wrote the Genjo Koan — the text containing this image — in 1233, shortly after establishing his community at Koshoji temple near Kyoto. Japan during this period was transitioning from aristocratic to warrior governance, and new Buddhist movements were offering ordinary people access to spiritual practice outside the old courtly and monastic elite structures.

Thirteenth-century Japanese Buddhist monk who founded the Soto school of Zen in Japan and is considered one of Japan's greatest philosophers. After studying in China, he returned to Japan and composed the Shobogenzo, a vast philosophical and meditative work written in Japanese rather than Chinese, an unprecedented choice for serious Buddhist writing. His teaching on the unity of practice and enlightenment transformed Japanese Zen.