Maku mozo! Archive
I’ve archived the Maku mozo!’s for those who jumped in mid-stream. Or for if you just want to see them all in one place. More zen-type quotes on the Words Page. |
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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 |
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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 |
2009
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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 |
2009
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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 |
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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 |
2009
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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 |
2009
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All living beings form habits of action influenced by subjective feelings and affections based on ignorance of the essence of awareness. -Chinul Just as insects can alight anywhere but on the flames of a fire, the minds of emotional people can form relations to anything except transcendent insight. -Pai-chang You simply must pay attention! Take care. -Yun-men Activate your spirit, and do not memorize the words of others. A lot of falsehood is not as good as a little truth; ultimately you will only cheat yourself. -Yun-men As for the real, it is the final truth. In the reality of the final truth, others and self are one. -Ming-chiao Which is important, to see what I am, or to speculate about what I will be? -Krishnamurti Surely, the important thing is to see what I am, because then I can deal with it. -Krishnamurti To say that I will be something in the future is mere idealism, and the idealist is escaping from what is; he is running away from the fact, which an be altered only in the present. -Krishnamurti Which is important, to see what I am, or to speculate about what I will be? Surely, the important thing is to see what I am, because then I can deal with it. What I will be is in the future, and the future is unpredictable. … To say that I will be something in the future is mere idealism, and the idealist is escaping from what is; he is running away from the fact, which can be altered only in the present. -Krishnamurti … the comparative mind is the most stupid mind of all … when you compare, you are no longer investigating to find out what is true … -Krishnamurti Life is relationship. … We cannot escape from relationship. … So what is important is to understand our dependence in relationship. -Krishnamurti Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter. -Twain People know good and bad but not how good and bad begin and end; is that complete knowledge? -Ming-chiao What understanding cannot understand is something that debate can never encompass. -Chuang Tzu Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties. -Fromm The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers. -Fromm The task we must set for ourselves is not to feel secure, but to be able to tolerate insecurity. -Fromm If I am what I have and if I lose what I have who then am I? -Fromm Most people die before they are fully born. Creativeness means to be born before one dies. -Fromm There is only one meaning of life: the act of living itself. -Fromm Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who matter won’t mind and those who mind don’t matter. -Suess Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy. -Thich Nhat Hanh |
2009
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Make it a secret principle in either seeing or hearing not to detain the mind in one place. -Takuan Soho What I teach people just requires you not to take on the confusion of others. -Lin-chi If you put "your" in front of "mess" you turn the fact of a mess into an idea of a mess, and thus find it easy to not do anything about it. Clean up the mess. -Maku mozo! Hurriedly going along with whatever happens in all situations, as you are caused to undergo changes by those myriad situations, you cannot be independent. -Lin-chi If you were able to put a stop to the mentality in which every thought is running after something, then you would be no different from a Zen master or a buddha. -Lin-chi Just do not allow any more interruptions at any time, and everything you see is It. -Lin-chi It is just because you are unable to stop the whole mentality of seeking that you get hooked on useless actions and states of other people. -Lin-chi Turn your attention back upon yourself and observe. -Lin-chi The body is not a collection of atoms but a stately, wondrous being. The mind is not emotional and intellectual entanglements but an unknowable solitary awareness. -Hung-chih What you must do is step back and figure out your own standpoint: what logic is there to it? -Yun-men What you must do is step back and figure out your own standpoint: what logic is there to it? You simply must pay attention! Take care. -Yun-men Activate your spirit, and do not memorize the words of others. A lot of falsehood is not as good as a little truth; ultimately you will only cheat yourself. -Yun-men As for the real, it is the final truth. In the reality of the final truth, others and self are one. -Ming-chiao .. it’s up to me… -Anderson … the only change that came was over me… -Anderson … we are our own saviours… -Anderson … it’s only the giving that makes you what you are… -Anderson … one day you’ll wake up, in the present day… -Anderson … seek and you will find truth within your mind… -Anderson I confused things with their names: that is belief. -Sartre |
2009
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It is only in our decisions that we are important. -Sartre Everything has been figured out, except how to live. -Sartre Being is. Being is in-itself. Being is what it is. -Sartre Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you. -Sartre What is the teaching of Buddhism? It is a teaching to see what is. -Takuan Soho Knowledge studies others; Wisdom is self-known. -Lao Tzu The beginning you bury, and you keep the end. -Kevin Russel If one is unaware of what to avoid, all one’s efforts will be in vain. -Fromm All that you have to do is to be aware from the beginning to the end, not become inattentive in the middle of it. -Krishnamurti We become what we think about. -Nightingale It all comes down to you. -J. Mitchell You will always experience what you believe and nothing else. And this invalidates your experience. -Krishnamurti Living with something is not the acceptance of it: it is there whether you accept it or not. -Krishnamurti Going beyond thought is knowing what thought is. -Krishnamurti See what happens when the brain is completely still. See what happens. -Krishnamurti The surest test if a man be sane Is if he accepts life whole, as it is, Without needing by measure or touch to understand… -Lao Tzu The future is what you are now. -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 Nothing in the world is permanent, and we’re foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we’re still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it. If change is of the essence of existence one would have thought it only sensible to make it the premise of our philosophy. -Maugham Never confuse movement with action. -Hemingway The shortest answer is doing the thing. -Hemingway Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again. -Baum |
2009
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Perception without motive is to experiment. Most of us find it difficult to observe without some kind of motive. -Krishnamurti The mind is a clever imposter. It can imitate the heart, but only you can know the difference. -Hill We need to re-educate ourselves by being aware, seeing how we are caught in words. -Krishnamurti Do not pursue what should be, but understand what is. -Krishnamurti Cherishing pride is committing a crime, While forgetting your merit brings joy beyond measure. -Hui Neng The perfect man employs his mind as a mirror. It grasps nothing, it refuses nothing. It receives but does not keep. -Chung-Tzu As long as you are trying to be something other than what you actually are, your mind wears itself out. -Krishnamurti He who is not afraid will always be safe. -Lao Tzu Just know your own mind. -Chinul A truth that’s told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent. -Blake A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees. -Blake As a man is, so he sees. -Blake Do what you will, this world’s a fiction and is made up of contradiction. -Blake I’m going to a place where I’m not afraid of what is. -James A great many people think they are thinking when they are really rearranging their prejudices. -William James The difficulty is that we do not see, we do not listen, we do not perceive things directly and simply as they are. -Krishnamurti Sorrow is the shadow of desire. -Krishnamurti Great things are done when men and mountains meet. -Blake Excessive sorrow laughs. Excessive joy weeps. -Blake Exuberance is beauty. -Blake |
2009
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He who binds to himself a joy Does the winged life destroy; But he who kisses the joy as it flies Lives in eternity’s sun rise. -Blake He who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence. -Blake I will not reason and compare: my business is to create. -Blake I was angry with my friend: I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow. -Blake If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. -Blake If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise. -Blake It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend. -Blake No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings. -Blake Many of our drives to succeed, aquire more, achieve ends, ect., are attempts to quiet the longing that only awareness can bring. -Sam I wonder if we really are aware of anger, sadness, happiness? Or are we aware of these things only when they are all over? -Krishnamurti What is most important is what is now, whether you can alter the way you live now. -Krishnamurti The man who never alters his opinions is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind. -Blake To generalize is to be an idiot. -Blake The biggest adversary in our life is ourselves. Know yourself. -Lee Delusion exists as long as there is desire and thought. That is simple. -Krishnamurti Don’t surround yourself with yourself. -Anderson The ending and the beginning are the same – right? -Krishnamurti |
2009
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Yesterday’s endings will tomorrow’s life give you. -Anderson Thinking obscures being. -Unkown There is no beginning and no ending. The implications are enormous. -Krishnamurti A man asked, "Put me on the right path." And to that one says, please don’t become anything. -Krishnamurti What is the common dominant factor in all our lives? Obviously it is thought. -Krishnamurti Thought is a material process in the brain. Then can that material process ever be independent? -Krishnamurti Is there another activity [of the mind] which is not a material process? -Krishnamurti The idea of individuality is a fallacy. -Krishnamurti Thnking about a problem is escape from the problem; for thinking is the problem, and the only problem. -Krishnamurti Freedom from conditioning comes with the freedom from thinking. When the mind is utterly still, only then is there freedom for the real to be. -Krishnamurti See the false as the false, then the truth is. You don’t have to look for it. -Krishnamurti You can make iron into a marvelous, complicated machine, but progress is illusion when applied to self-becoming. -Krishnamurti We translate the past according to our particular conditioning and interpret it to suit our prejudices. -Krishnamurti There is great happiness in not wanting. -Krishnamurti Facts are the enemy of truth. -Cervantes I no longer work for anything but the sensation I have while working. – Albert Giacometti As soon as you acquire, you lose interest. In trying to possess, you are alert, interested; but possession is boredom. You may want to possess more, but the pursuit of more is only a movement towards boredom. -Krishnamurti The kingdom of heaven is spread out across the earth, only people don’t see it. -Jesus I am the light that illuminates all things. I am all: from me all came forth, and to me all is attained. Split a piece of wood; I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there. -Jesus Peace, be still. -Jesus I say, I’ve fed his sheep. Now I’ll tend to them, … tend to my sheep. -Jesus What is overcome must be conquered again and again. -Krishnamurti Attention creates a space for the appropriate response. Surely, the end and the means are one; the means is the end, the only end; there is no goal apart from the means. -Krishnamurti Freedom is at the beginning, not at the end; the goal is the first step, the means is the end. -Krishnamurti The very activity of the mind is a barrier to its own understanding. Have you ever noticed that there is understanding only when the mind, as thought, is not functioning? Understanding comes with the ending of the thought process, in the interval between two thoughts. -Krishnamurti |
2009
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