Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
We should not be just a fan of dragons; we should always be the dragon himself. Then we will not be afraid of any dragon.
Big mind is something to express, not something to figure out. Big mind is something you have, not something to seek for.
When he bowed to all those buddhas, the buddhas he bowed to were beyond his own understanding. Again and again he did it.
A tiger does not ignore or slight any small animal. The way he catches a mouse and catches and devours a cow are the same.
In the zazen posture, your mind and body have, great power to accept things as they are, whether agreeable or disagreeable.
Concentration comes not from trying hard to focus on something, but from keeping your mind open and directing it at nothing.
Tai Shimano visited Shunryu Suzuki. "How are you feeling these days?" Suzuki replied, "They have a new name for me: Cancer!"
Instead of respecting things, we want to use them for ourselves and if it is difficult to use them, we want to conquer them.
It is easy to have calmness in inactivity, it is hard to have calmness in activity, but calmness in activity is true calmness.
It is not after we understand the truth that we attain enlightenment. To realize the truth is to live - to exist here and now.
The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the experts, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all possibilities.
If you were not born in this world, there would be no need to die. To be born in this world is to die, to disappear [laughing].
Life and death are the same thing. When we realize this fact, we have no fear of death anymore, nor actual difficulty in our life.
Let your ears hear without trying to hear. Let the mind think without trying to think and without trying to stop it. That is practice.
You must be true to your own way until at last you actually come to the point where you see it is necessary to forget all about yourself.
When you are fooled by something else, the damage will not be so big. But when you are fooled by yourself, it is fatal. No more medicine.
If your mind is empty, it is ready for anything. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind there are few.
As long as we have some definite idea about or some hope in the future, we cannot really be serious with the moment that exists right now.
No matter what god or doctrine you believe in, if you become attached to it, your belief will be based more or less on a self-centered idea.
If you take pride in your attainment or become discouraged because of your idealistic effort, your practice will confine you by a thick wall.
As soon as you see something, you already start to intellectualize it. As soon as you intellectualize something, it is no longer what you saw.
So when you try hard to make your own way, you will help others...before you make your own way you cannot help anyone, and no one can help you.
To have some deep feeling about Buddhism is not the point; we just do what we should do, like eating supper and going to bed. This is Buddhism.
When we become truly ourselves, we just become a swinging door, and we are purely independent of, and at the same time, dependent upon everything.
It must be obvious...that there is a contradiction in wanting to be perfectly secure in a universe whose very nature is momentariness and fluidity.
If you think your body and mind are two, that is wrong; if you think that they are one, that is also wrong. Our body and mind are both two and one.
The secret of Soto Zen is just two words: not always so.... In Japanese, it's two words, three words in English. That is the secret of our practice.
Only when you understand people, they may understand you. So even though you do not say anything, if you understand people there is some communication.
True communication depends upon our being straightforward with one another... But the best way to communicate may be just to sit without saying anything.
When you try to understand everything, you will not understand anything. The best way is to understand yourself, and then you will understand everything.
To be different is to have value. In this sense all things have equal, absolute value. Each thing has absolute value and thus is equal to everything else.
A flower falls, even though we love it; and a weed grows, even though we do not love it....In this way our life should be understood. Then there is no problem.
All descriptions of reality are limited expressions of the world of emptiness. Yet we attach to the descriptions and think they are reality. That is a mistake.
So the secret is just to say 'Yes!' and jump off from here. Then there is no problem. It means to be yourself, always yourself, without sticking to an old self.
If you can just appreciate each thing, one by one, then you will have pure gratitude. Even though you observe just one flower, that one flower includes everything
When you are just you, without thinking or trying to say something special, just saying what is on your mind and how you feel, then there is naturally self-respect.
The true purpose of Zen is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes. Zen practice is to open up our small mind.
The person who can freely acknowledge that life is full of difficulties can be free, because they are acknowledging the nature of life - that it can't be much else.
Zen is not some fancy, special art of living. Our teaching is just to live, always in reality, in its exact sense. To make our effort, moment after moment, is our way.
If you want to study Zen, you should forget all your previous ideas and just practice zazen and see what kind of experience you have in your practice. That is naturalness.
If your practice is good, you may become proud of it. What you do is good, but something more is added to it. Pride is extra. Right effort is to get rid of something extra.
Nothing outside yourself can cause any trouble. You yourself make the waves in your mind. If you leave your mind as it is, it will become calm. This mind is called big mind.
If you want to enjoy the movie, you should know that it is the combination of film and light and white screen, and that the most important thing is to have a plain, white screen.
The goal of our life’s effort is to reach the other shore, Nirvana. Prajna paramita, the true wisdom of life, is that in each step of the way, the other shore is actually reached.
If you continue this simple practice every day, you will obtain some wonderful power. Before you attain it, it is something wonderful, but after you attain it, it is nothing special.
Whereever you are, you are one with the clouds and one with the sun and the stars you see. You are one with everything. That is more true than I can say, and more true than you can hear.
In your big mind, everything has the same value...In your practice you should accept everything as it is, giving to each thing the same respect given to a Buddha. Here there is Buddhahood
If you try to observe the precepts, that is not true observation of precepts. When you observe the precepts without trying to observe the precepts, that is true observation of the precepts.
Usually when someone believes in a particular religion, his attitude becomes more and more a sharp angle pointing away from himself. In our way the point of the angle is always toward ourselves.
Zazen practice is the direct expression of our true nature. Strictly speaking, for a human being, there is no other practice than this practice; there is no other way of life than this way of life.