' Is my portrait of me, real ?'...

If you take this portrait of me to be real,

Then what am I, really?


But why hang it there,

If not to anticipate people getting to know me?


Looking at this portrait,

Can you say that what is hanging there

Is really me?


In that case your mind will never be

Fully united with the wall {as in Bodhdharma’s wall-gazing 
meditation cave}.



~ Dogen