The Ten Thousand Things in Mind

"A monk asked Zen master Yunju Daoying, "What is the one Dharma?"
Yunju said, "What are the ten thousand Dharmas?"
The monk said, "I don't understand how to comprehend this."
Yunju said, "The one Dharma is your own mind.  The ten thousand dharmas are your fundamental nature.  Are they one thing or two?"
The monk bowed.
Yunju showed the monk a poem that said:

The single Dharma is the essence of all dharmas,
The myriad dharmas penetrate the one Dharma.
"Mind-only: and "nature-only,"
Don't say they're different or the same."

"Zen's Chinese Heritage: The Masters and Their Teachings" by Andy Ferguson, Wisdom Publications, 2000, p. 212.



I've read that an adult human being has around 60 trillion cells in their body and that there are 60 trillion atoms in each cell.  Some astronomers estimate that there are 300 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, and that there are 150 billion galaxies in the Universe.  The human body is extremely complex, and the Cosmos is extremely complex.  The Chinese used the expression "the ten thousand things" to refer to this fact of emerging unity in the Present Time (Now) as the interpenetrating and interconnecting (a Cosmic Ecology) of the myriad and complex objects/things/events.  

萬物 
Ten Thousand Things or Myriad Beings or Many Things (wan wu) 

Complexity

Zen Poetry

My home 'altar' reminds me to keep in mind the many Elements of Nature that enable me to explore the complex realms of Mind/Spirit.  I light a candle and a stick of incense, and then reflect on the symbolism of the Four Elements (i.e., Ten Thousand Things) and Mind.  Different or the Same?  Yes and No, No and Yes - Zhuangzi laughs about how we use words.