Lingyun was wandering in the mountains and became lost in his wandering. He rounded a bend and saw peach blossoms on the other side of the valley. This sight awakened him and he wrote this poem:
For thirty years I searched for a master swordsman,
how many times did the leaves fall,
and the branches burst into bud?
But from the moment I saw the peach blossoms,
I’ve had no doubts.
Later, Keizan, a Japanese teacher, wrote:
The village peach blossoms didn’t know
their own pink
but still they freed Lingyun
from all his doubts.
Commentary from the Dogen Institute