Each time you bring it up,
Each time it is new.

-Unknown



This teaching is called The Great Way. The very nature of the Great Way is voidness of opposition.

-Huang Po



The moment of realizing the unity of Mind and the "substance" which constitutes reality may truly be said to baffle description.

-Huang Po



Full understanding can come to you only through an inexpressible mystery.

-Huang Po



Question: At this very moment, all sorts of erroneous thoughts are constantly flowing through our minds. How can you speak of having none?

Answer: Error has no substance; it is entirely the product of your own thinking.... Therefore it is said, "When thoughts arise, then do all things arise. When thoughts vanish, then do all things vanish."

-Huang Po



Life is only error,
And death is knowledge.

-von Schiller



Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.

-Epicurus



For certain is death for the born
And certain is birth for the dead;
Therefore over the inevitable
Thou should not grieve.

-Bhagavad Gita



A perception, sudden as blinking, that subject and object are one, will lead to a deeply mysterious wordless understanding; and by this understanding will you awake to the truth of Zen.

-Huang Po



Have no longing to become a future Buddha; your sole concern should be, as thought succeeds thought, to avoid clinging to any of them.

-Huang Po



The Way is not something which can be studied. Study leads to the retention of concepts and so the Way is entirely misunderstood.

-Huang Po



Our bodies are the creations of our own minds. But how can one expect to gain such knowledge from books?

-Huang Po



... your sole concern should be, as thought succeeds thought, to avoid clinging to any of them.

-Huang Po



The wisdom that comes from non-dualism will destroy a concept-forming, dualistic mentality.

-Huang Po



Question: What is implied by "seeing into the Real Nature"?
Answer: That Nature and your perception of it are one. ... Let me repeat that the perceived cannot perceive.

-Huang Po



The man who "perceives" things always wants to identify them, to get a hold on them. Those who use their minds like eyes in this way are sure to suppose that progress is a matter of stages. If you are that kind of person, you are as far from the truth as earth is far from heaven. Why this talk of "seeing into your own nature"?

-Huang Po



Don't waste your life merely sensing; channel thought and feeling to one purpose - and then let it happen.

-Uncertain



If we were nowhere there would be the sky. The sky isn't nothing.

-Sam Robinson (said spontaneously at age 5)



The highest principle cannot be explained;
It is neither free nor bound.
Lively and attuned to everything,
It is always right before you.

-Niu T’ou



Hating can never overcome hatred. Only love can bring the end of hating. This is the eternal law.

You too will die someday, as everyone must. When you know this, your hatred is stilled.

-Dhammapada



The awareness that the observer is the observed is not a process of identification with the observed.

-Krishnamurti



The body does not say 'I am.' It is you who says 'I am the body.' Find out who this 'I' is. Seeking its source, it will vanish.

-Maharshi

Whoever knows that nothing depends on anything has found the way.

-Bodhidharma



If you want to realize, don't seek from others, don't search outside yourself.

-Keizan



If you want to realize, don't seek from others, don't search outside yourself. You should look into the state before you were embodied - there will be no difference or distinctions.

-Keizan



It is only because you cling to outward forms that you come to "see," "hear," "feel," and "know" things as individual entities. True perception is beyond your powers so long as you indulge in this.

-Huang Po



In the beginning was the WORD.

-St. John



Everyone knows enough to pursue what he does not know,
but no one knows enough to pursue what he already knows.

-Chuang Tzu



When you're betting for stones in an archery contest, you shoot with skill. When you're betting for fancy belt buckles, you worry about your aim. And when you're betting for real gold, you're a nervous wreck. Your skill is the same in all three cases - but because one prize means more to you than another, you let outside concerns weigh on your mind. He who looks too hard at the outside gets clumsy on the inside.

-Chuang Tzu



A man drinking water knows well enough whether it is cool or warm.

-Huang Po



Only when your minds cease dwelling on anything whatsoever will you come to an understanding of the true way of Zen.

-Huang Po



Experience has shown, and a true philosophy will always show, that a vast, perhaps the larger portion of the truth arises from the seemingly irrelevant.

-Poe



Man's real life is happy, chiefly because he is ever expecting that it soon will be so.

-Poe



There is a time for departure even when there's no certain place to go.

-Williams



Success and failure are equally disastrous.

-Williams



... pride is judgement ...

-Edwards



The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks.

-Williams



Give the people a new word and they think they have a new fact.

-Cather



My advice is to give up all indulgence in conceptual thought and intellectual processes.

Huang Po



DO NOT PERMIT THE EVENTS OF YOUR DAILY LIVES TO BIND YOU, BUT NEVER WITHDRAW YOURSELVES FROM THEM.

Huang Po



Never allow yourselves to mistake outward appearance for reality.

-Huang Po



Avoid the error of thinking in terms of past, present, and future. The past has not gone, the present is but a fleeting moment; the future is not yet to come.

-Huang Po



... do not permit the least movement of your mind to disturb you. This alone is what is called liberation.

-Huang Po

Not to be subject to affliction is what's meant by liberation. There is no other liberation.

-Bodhidharma



That which is around me does not affect my mood; my mood affects that which is around me.

-Enzo



We are always acting on what has just finished happening. ... We think we're in the present, but we aren't. The present we know is only a movie of the past.

-Wolfe



To study the way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self.

-Dogen



There has never been anything given to another, and there has never been anything received from anyone; this is called the truth.

-Keizan



The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.

-Chodron



Think about it. Since you are someone, you speak of before birth and after death; but what further past, present, or future could you think of?

-Keizan



Always, without a moment's error, from birth to death it is just thus - but unless you encounter it once, you will vainly be confused by material senses, you will not know your own self.

-Keizan



If you want to know the real path, it is not to be learned form the Buddhas. The reason for this is your seeing and hearing do not depend on the eyes and ears of another, your hands and feet do not use the action of another.

-Keizan



The Zen school does not set up words, but only transmits direct pointing ... It is just carried out by having people directly subdue their conceptual faculty and be silent.

-Keizan



The Zen school does not set up words, but only transmits direct pointing ... It is just carried out by having people directly subdue their conceptual faculty and be silent.

This is not a matter of aversion to words or considering silence good; it is to let you know your mind is thus. Like clear water, like space, it is pure, clear, and sparkling clean, harmoniously fluid and unobstructed.

-Keizan



Do you not know that we do not come from anywhere even as we are born, and we do not go anywhere even as we die? Born wherever you are, you pass away on the spot; origination and annihilation as time goes by never rest.

-Keizan


Do not obstruct yourself by hearing and seeing.

-Keizan



What do you call other, what do you call self? ... You should not see even an inch of the whole earth as being outside your own mind.

-Keizan



It is not necessary to ask others - just look back on your very first determination of mind; look into yourself and see what is right and what is not right.

-Keizan



Since beginningless time and forever into the future, though we are temporarily creating divisions and arranging time frames of past, present and future, yet from eon to eon it is all just so.

-Keizan

Since beginningless time and forever into the future, though we are temporarily creating divisions and arranging time frames of past, present and future, yet from eon to eon it is all just so. ... Knowing this realm can only be obtained by making a penetrating investigation and stopping your own folly and realizing the truth by yourself.

-Keizan



Indeed, not craving anything is called the way, so even if it's contentment you want, this is still based on greed.

-Keizan



Don't cling to names or worry about forms. In Zen study you must discern reality.

-Keizan



Stop seeking outwardly, turn to yourself to understand.

-Keizan



In truth, if you stop thinking you will expose the essense of mind. Hearing this, you may try to become mindless like a wall, but this is not really seeing the mind.

-Keizan



Things do not set up names; things do not separate their forms. ... If you can see in this way, you do not even use the word liberation, much less complain of bondage.

-Keizan



Although according to the view of emotional attachments the physical body is received from one's parents, still, we should realize that our being is not the gross physical elements.

-Keizan



Zen study is basically to reach the fundamental and clarify the essence of mind. ... As for what this fundamental essence is, your features may differ as you die and are born over and over again, but at all times there is an inherent awareness.

-Keizan



Without relying on seeing and hearing, not being involved in knowing objects, try to see what is underneath. There will be an alert, awake knowledge that is not gotten from others; you will unexpectedly have a spontaneous realization.

-Keizan



Our teaching is not just spoken or unspoken teaching; there is something that appears obviously and is clearly never hidden. Everything, down to the chirping of insects, is revealed.

-Keizan



Indeed, since people lack nothing, it is a pity that they wander so much in illusion once they have been deluded by their perception.

-Keizan



If you want to realize this, don't seek from others, don't search outside yourself. You should look into the state before your were embodied - there will be no differences or distinctions.

-Keizan



The mind-moon and the eye-blossom have fine bright color -
Opening beyond time, who is there to enjoy them?

-Keizan



Without arousing any intellectualization, just see directly - there is definitely something that has no skin or flesh; its body is like space, with no particular form or color. ... Empty and clear, it is just a matter of being completely aware of it.

-Keizan

It is just thusness everywhere.

Keizan



Let everything find its own enjoyment.

-Chuang Tzu



Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.

-Twain



When you're betting for stones in an archery contest, you shoot with skill. When you're betting for fancy belt buckles, you worry about your aim. And when you're betting for real gold, you're a nervous wreck. Your skill is the same in all three cases - but because one prize means more to you than another, you let outside concerns weigh on your mind. He who looks too hard at the outside gets clumsy on the inside.

-Chuang Tzu



He who has mastered the true nature of life does not labor over what life cannot do.

He who has mastered the true nature of fate does not labor over what knowledge cannot change.

-Chuang Tzu




Withdraw into thoughtlessness and in this way give life to your mind;
Be reverent of what is within and extend this same reverence to others.

-Chuang Tzu




If you're not sure, don't act.

-Bodhidharma



Intelligence comes into being when the brain discovers its fallibility, when it discovers what it is capable of, and what it is not.

-Krishnamurti



Being good you are wise. Not, being wise you are good.

-Krishnamurti



Don't depend on anybody to find out what is true and what is false.

-Krishnamurti



When there is complete cessation of division between the observer and the observed, then 'what is' is no longer what is.

-Krishnamurti



... [emotional] analysis is the denial of action; action being always in the active present.

-Krishnamurti




If one thinks, he will be taken by his thoughts.

-Takuan Soho



The crisis is not in the outer world, but in consciousness itself.

-Krishnamurti

I think this is the real key: To love what you do.

-Krishnamurti



What has been done - pass it by and do not regret it. Events that have not yet arrived - let them go and do not think about them. This is the person who is walking on the path.

-Bodhidharma




We need to re-educate ourselves by being aware, seeing how we are caught in words.

-Krishnamurti




What one has to do is to be aware of one's conditioning - just to know that one is conditioned, that one has been conditioned for centuries. If you do not realize this then you will continue to create great confusion, great misery, for others and yourself.

-Krishnamurti




What is important is to understand the operation of your own mind.

-Krishnamurti



Go into it and you will see this. What creates time is the division between the observer and the observed, and you have removed this division altogether when there is total attention and awareness.

-Krishnamurti



To observe without any distortion is only possible if there is complete attention with your body, your nerves, your mind, your heart, your ears. Then you will see, if you so attend, that there is no entity or being called the observer. Then there is only attention.

-Krishnamurti




You can see everything within yourself.

-Ch'ung Hui



Attraction and aversion create a sense of self. There is no self. They are just thoughts. They are insubstantial. When you die, all the ideas of self will go away.

-Rama




When you are able to leave the realm of relative things and return to the real Oneness, you will find that names do not exist in the true reality.

-Hui Neng




When you reach the goal, the whole universe will become right. but if you do not comprehend the truth, you will forever be at odds with things.

-Hui Hai



Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.

-Tolstoy



It is consciousness that is in disorder; there is no disorder anywhere else.

-Naude



Do not be bothered by anything.

-S. Suzuki



The Great Way is not difficult for those who are not attached to their preferences.

-Sengstan



Indeed, it is due to our choosing to accept or reject that we do not see the true nature of things.

-Sengstan



Stop talking and thinking, and there is nothing you will not be able to know.

-Sengstan



Do not search for the truth; only cease to cherish opinions.

-Sengstan



If you do not discriminate between coarse and fine you will not be tempted to prejudice and opinion.

-Sengstan



Just let things be in their own way, and there will be neither coming nor going.

-Sengstan