PRAJNA-PARAMITA

There are two ways of dealing with Nature, according to Zen.  One is to distinguish, describe, analyze, and, in pursuit of practical ends, manipulate it from the outside.  This is to deal in concepts and acts that are disjunctive and misleading. 

The other way is to contemplate Nature, much as the Taoist of China does, from the position of one who is indistinguishably one with it.  By identifying oneself with Nature, one acquires prajna-paramita, the wisdom that has gone beyond--to the beyond that is within.

There is a metaphor that perfectly suggests what prajna-paramita means.  It is the metaphor of crossing a river by raft or ferry to get to the farther shore (Nirvana).  The nearer bank of the river is this world, known to the senses.  From it one cannot imagine at all what the farther shore in the distance is like.

But the ferry arrives, piloted by the Buddha, and when one boards it (i.e. adopts the Buddhist view) and begins the crossing, the receding nearer bank gradually loses reality and the far shore begins to take shape.

At length only the far shore seems real, and when one arrives there and leaves behind him the river and the ferry, they too lose all reality, because one has now gained final release, which alone is utterly real.

Here the former bank, the river, the ferry, the Buddha, and even the goal from the start of gaining the far shore (Nirvana), are equally and completely void, that is, done with.