One of the favorite metaphors of Zen is the Mirror and it’s reflection, or a pool with the moon reflected in it? Who is the man in the mirror? Who is it that looks in the mirror in the morning? Is the Mind a mirror? What is self-reflective consciousness? What is your self image? Are you an image?

The Mirror is the Knower; the image is the Known. Culture cultivates the image as the knower and other images as the known. The Knower falls to sleep in the trance of the Image. It is the cracks in the image that can wake him up.

It was the Upanishads that the Knower first stirred. And then the Buddha as the Knower awoke. This is an evolution of consciousness, this waking up to the Knower that has no second. This is a shift in the center of consciousness from the image in the mirror to the mirror itself.

But Zen doesn’t stop with the. Mirror. There is no Mirror or image. One has to go beyond words, for it is words that creates the image in the mirror.