73 quotes found
“Belief may serve as a useful stopgap measure in the absence of actual experience, but once you see [it] becomes unnecessary.”
“There's nothing you can find - nothing you can even imagine that doesn't originate, develop, or exist in relation to other things.”
“We imagine that things come into existence, endure for a while, and then pass out of existence”
“To forget the self is to remember that we don't exist alone, but in relation to other people, to other creatures, to the planet, and to the universe.”
“[F]ocus not on ourselves as a force in charge of the manipulation of others, but on how our lives interpenetrate those of others and all creatures of a dynamic universe.”
“For there is never anything but the present, and if one cannot live there, one cannot live anywhere.”
“[I]t would seem that to be incapable of sitting and watching with the mind completely at rest is to be incapable of experiencing the world in which we live to the full. For one does not know the wo...”
“It has been said that if you have Zen in your life,you have no fear, no doubt, no unnecessary craving, no extreme emotions. Neither illiberal attitudes nor egotistical actions trouble you. You serv...”
“[I]t is typical of Zen that its style of action has the strongest feeling of commitment, of "follow-through." It enters into everything wholeheartedly and freely without having to keep an eye on it...”
“Zen is nothing to get excited about.”
“One master defines Zen as the art of feeling the polar star in the southern sky. Truth can be reached only through the comprehension of opposites.”
“I am not important. If I take a break, no one dies. And this is A Good Thing.”
“We're all in this together and we don't have much time.”
“Sharpen your sword daily , and let it serve your true master: YOU. You and the Master are one”
“If the feet of enlightenment moved, the great ocean would overflow; If that head bowed, it would look down upon the heavens.Such a body has no place to rest. . . .Let another continue this poem.”
“The object of our lives is to look at, listen to, touch, taste things. Without themthese sticks, stones, feathers, shellsthere is no Deity.”
“When the cart doesn't move, do you goad the cart or the ox?”
“The cats were relaxing in a patch of sunlight on the rug without a thought in their sleek brown heads. What matter to them that it was Sunday-or even Thursday? Every day was Today in their scheme o...”
“What is Zen? Zen means doing anything perfectly, making mistakes perfectly, being defeated perfectly, hesitating perfectly, doing anything perfectly or imperfectly, perfectly. What is the meaning o...”
“Thus we see that the all important thing is not killing or giving life, drinking or not drinking, living in the town or the country, being unlucky or lucky, winning or losing. It is how we win, how...”
