Einstein & Dōgen

One afternoon, very long ago, Albert Einstein was visiting Eiheiji, Dōgen Zenji's temple complex in Fukui Prefecture, Japan. As Dōgen was pouring tea, Einstein turned from his contemplations of the garden behind the temple and said:

The true value of a human being can be found in the degree to which he has attained liberation from the self.

Ahhh, sighed Dōgen quietly, and then, smiling to himself, he said, "I'll match that and raise the ante."

To learn the Buddhist Way is to learn about oneself. To learn about oneself is to forget oneself. To forget oneself is to perceive oneself as all things. To realize this is to cast off the body and mind of self and others. When you have reached this stage you will be detached even from enlightenment but will practice it continually without thinking about it.

Einstein sipped his tea quietly, and while turning his gaze back to the garden, thought, "That was particularly good. But i think i'll match that and raise the ante again."

What an extraordinary situation is that of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he feels it. But from the point of view of daily life, without going deeper, we exist for our fellow-men — in the first place for those on whose smiles and welfare all our happiness depends, and next for all those unknown to us personally with whose destinies we are bound up by the tie of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labours of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.

Quite impressed, Dōgen decided to raise the ante yet one more time. Bowing, he refilled Einstein's cup with tea.

Knowing he could raise no more, Einstein matched what Dōgen had offered. Turning to face Dōgen, he bowed, and drank his tea.