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Many roads lead to the Path, but basically there are only two: reason and practice.
And as long as you're subject to birth and death, you'll never attain enlightenment.
But while success and failure depend on conditions, the mind neither waxes nor wanes.
When we're deluded there's a world to escape. When we're aware, there's nothing to escape.
According to the Sutras, evil deeds result in hardships and good deeds result in blessings.
Worship means reverence and humility it means revering your real self and humbling delusions.
But deluded people don't realize that their own mind is the Buddha. They keep searching outside.
When you don't understand, you depend on reality. When you do understand, reality depends on you.
Buddha means awareness, the awareness of body and mind that prevents evil from arising in either.
As long as you look for a Buddha somewhere else, you'll never see that your own mind is the Buddha
Everything good and bad comes from your own mind. To find something beyond the mind is impossible.
As long as you look for a Buddha somewhere else, you'll never see that your own mind is the Buddha.
People of this world are deluded. They're always longing for something - always, in a word, seeking.
The essence of the Way is detachment. And the goal of those who practice is freedom from appearances.
The mind is the root from which all things grow if you can understand the mind, everything else is included.
Unless you see your nature, all this talk about cause & effect is nonsense. Buddhas don't practice nonsense.
The mind is the root from which all things grow. If you can understand the mind, everything else is included.
Once you stop clinging and let things be, you'll be free, even of birth and death. You'll transform everything.
People who don't see their nature and imagine they can practice thoughtlessness all the time are lairs and fools.
To go from mortal to Buddha, you have to put an end to karma, nurture your awareness, and accept what life brings.
Not thinking about anything is Zen. Once you know this, walking, sitting, or lying down, everything you do is Zen.
People who don't see their own nature and imagine they can practice thoughtlessness all the time are liars and fools.
If we should be blessed by some great reward, such as fame or fortune, it's the fruit of a seed planted by us in the past.
Whoever knows that the mind is a fiction and devoid of anything real knows that his own mind neither exists nor doesn't exist.
The ignorant mind, with its infinite afflictions, passions, and evils, is rooted in the three poisons. Greed, anger, and delusion.
If you use your mind to study reality, you won't understand either your mind or reality. If you study reality without using your mind, you'll understand both.
Leaving behind the false, return to the true: make no discriminations between self and others. In contemplation, one's mind should be stable and unmoving, like a wall.
The true Way is sublime. It can't be expressed in language. Of what use are scriptures? But someone who sees his own nature finds the Way, even if he can't read a word.
All Buddhas preach emptiness. Why? Because they wish to crush the concrete ideas of the students. If a student even clings to an idea of emptiness, he betrays all Buddhas.
This one life has no form and is empty by nature. If you become attached by any form, you should reject it. If you see an ego, a soul, a birth, or a death, reject them all.
But people of the deepest understanding look within, distracted by nothing. Since a clear mind is the Buddha, they attain the understanding of a Buddha without using the mind.
Whoever realizes that the six senses aren't real, that the five aggregates are fictions, that no such things can be located anywhere in the body, understands the language of Buddhas.
Externally keep yourself away from all relationships, and internally have no pantings in your heart; when your mind is like unto a straight-standing wall, you may enter into the Path.
When your mind doesn't stir inside, the world doesn't arise outside. When the world and the mind are both transparent, this is true vision. And such understanding is true understanding.
The awareness of mortals falls short. As long as they're attached to appearances, they're unaware that their minds are empty. And by mistakenly clinging to the appearance of things they lose the Way.
To enter by reason means to realize the essence through instruction and to believe that all living things share the same true nature, which isn't apparent because it's shrouded by sensation and delusion.
Don't hate life and death or love life and death. Keep your every thought free of delusion, and in life you'll witness the beginning of nirvana, and in death you'll experience the assurance of no rebirth.
To see nothing is to perceive the Way, and to understand nothing is to know the Dharma, because seeing is neither seeing nor not seeing and because understanding is neither understanding nor not understanding.
To see nothing is to perceive the Way, and to understand nothing is to know the Dharma, because seeing is neither seeing nor not seeing, and because understanding is neither understanding nor not understanding.
The Way is basically perfect. It doesn't require perfecting. The Way has no form or sound. It's subtle and hard to perceive. It's like when you drink water: you know how hot or cold it is, but you can't tell others.
One clings to life although there is nothing to be called life; another clings to death although there is nothing to be called death. In reality, there is nothing to be born; consequently, there is nothing to perish.
Worship means reverence and humility. It means revering your real self and humbling delusions. If you can wipe out evil desires and harbor good thoughts, even if nothing shows, it's worship. Such form is its real form.
But when you first embark on the Path, your awareness won't be focused. You're likely to see all sorts of strange, dreamlike scenes. But you shouldn't doubt that all such scenes come from your own mind and nowhere else.
But this mind isn't somewhere outside the material body of the four elements. Without this mind we can't move. The body has no awareness. Like a plant or a stone, the body has no nature. So how does it move? It's the mind that moves.
People of this world are deluded. They're always longing for something, always, in a word, seeking. But the wise wake up. They choose reason over custom. They fix their minds on the sublime and let their bodies change with the seasons.
The mind's capacity is limitless, and its manifestations are inexhaustible. Seeing forms with your eyes, hearing sounds with your ears, smelling odors with your nose, tasting flavors with your tongue, every movement or state is all your mind.
If you see your nature, you don't need to read sutras or invoke buddhas. Erudition and knowledge are not only useless but also cloud your awareness. Doctrines are only for pointing to the mind. Once you see your mind, why pay attention to doctrines?
To have a body is to suffer. Does anyone with a body know peace? Those who understand this detach themselves from all that exists and stop imagining or seeking anything. The sutras say, "To seek is to suffer. To seek nothing is bliss." When you seek nothing, you're on the Path.
When mortals are alive, they worry about death. When they're full, they worry about hunger. Theirs is the Great Uncertainty. But sages don't consider the past. And they don't worry about the future. Nor do they cling to the present. And from moment to moment they follow the Way.
Still others commit all sorts of evil deeds, claiming karma doesn't exist. They erroneously maintain that since everything is empty, committing evil isn't wrong. Such persons fall into a hell of endless darkness with no hope of release. Those who are wise hold no such conception.