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.

Join Maku mozo!

Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you.

-Sartre

If one is unaware of what to avoid, all one’s efforts will be in vain.

-Fromm

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

Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.

-Baum

Perception without motive is to experiment. Most of us find it difficult to

observe without some kind of motive.

-Krishnamurti

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

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

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

Sorrow is the shadow of desire.

-Krishnamurti

When all discrimination is abandoned, when contact with things is broken, the mind is brighter than sun and moon together, cleaner than frost and snow.

-Zen prayer

I am trying to be unfamiliar with what I am doing.

-John Cage

In true listening, nothing is heard.

-Unknown

Observe things as it is.

-Shunryu Suzuki

Who is content with nothing possesses all things.

-Boileau-Despreaux

Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.

-Helen Keller

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 fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.

-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

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

When the focus of your practice becomes like the light of the sun penetrating a magnifying glass so sharply that it makes fire, it dissolves greed, anger, and ignorance, the three great obstacles to our original heart/mind.

-Jakusho Kwong

Do not fear mistakes. There are none.

-Miles Davis

The epitome of the human realm is to be stuckin a huge traffic jam of discursive thought.

-Chogyam Trungpa

Do not divide appearances as being there and awareness as being here. Let

appearance and awareness be indivisible.

-Tuku Urgyen

Whenever there is attachment, association with it brings endless misery.

-Gampopa

To see is to forget the name of the thing one sees.

-Paul Valery

Chaos is the score upon which reality is written.

-Henry Miller

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

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

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

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

The Buddha did not teach Buddhism, he taught a way of life.

-Goenka

The wise man sets no high value on a thing simply because it is hard to get.

-Lao Tsu

Nothing in the voice

of the cicada

intimates

how soon it will die.

-Basho

If I may say so, be open, sensitive, be fully aware of what is from moment to moment.

-Krishnamurti

Happiness is never a matter of time. When there was happiness, you never asked how to continue in it; if you had asked, you would have already tasted unhappiness.

-Krishnamurti

Hope is the denial of life.

-Krishnamurti

It is good to be aware of the ways of one’s own thinking.

-Krishnamurti

Without first catching a glimpse of desire as a single unit, whatever we may or may not do will be of very little significance, for desire only multiplies desire and the mind is trapped in this conflict.

-Krishnamurti

There is freedom from conflict only when desire, which makes up the ‘I’ with its remembrances and recognitions, comes to an end.

-Krishnamurti

Time is the psychological enemy of man.

-Krishnamurti

The way to live is to be.

-Lao Tzu

Comparison does not bring about understanding; comparison is another form of distraction, as judgment is evasion.

-Krishnamurti

Do you see how important it is to be aware of what is and not be caught in what one would like it to be? It is easy to create an illusion and live in it.

-Krishnamurti

We were talking of not giving birth to problems. If it may be pointed out, you must be aware of the manner in which the mind is creating the problem.

-Krishnamurti

We seek security, constantly demanding that there shall be no disturbance; and it is this desire not to be disturbed that makes us avoid what is and fear what might be. Fear is the ignorance of what is, and our life is spent in a constant state of fear.

-Krishnamurti

We should find perfect existence through imperfect existence.

-Shunryu Suzuki

The old calendar

fills me with gratitude

like a sutra.

-Buson

Why do you stay in prison

when the door is so wide open?

Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.

Live in silence.

-Rumi

One who knows the Self puts death to death.

-Upanishads

Comparison of what is with what should be brings pain.

-Krishnamurti

What should you do?

Wherever you are, examine your mind with accurate awareness.

Clam yourself, quiet yourself, master your senses. Look right into the

source of mind, always keep it shinning bright, clear and pure. Do not give

rise to an indifferent mind.

-Hongren

All that we are is the result of our thoughts; with our thoughts we make the world. If a man speaks or acts with a harmful thought, trouble follows him as the wheel follows the ox that draws the cart.

-Dhammapada

The attentive man looks on wakefulness as his greatest treasure. Stay awake. Watch and reflect. Work with careful attention. In this way you will find the light within yourself.

-Dhammapada

Whatever an enemy may do, he cannot harm you as much as your own wrongly directed thoughts.

Once you understand, no one – neither your father nor mother – can do as much good to you as your own well-directed thoughts.

-Dhammapada

By letting go it all gets done

The world is won by those who let it go.

But when you try and try

The world is then beyond the winning.

-Lao Tzu

Facing it, always facing it, that’s the way to get through. Face it.

-Joseph Conrad

Thinking is the enemy of perfection.

-Joseph Conrad

The universe has no inside, no outside;

The mind-dharma is just the same.

To comprehend the universe

Is to penetrate the principle of suchness.

-Buddhanandi

Good or bad originates from discrimination. If discrimination does not label compulsively, from what can false feeling arise?

-Fa Yung

You can see everything within yourself.

-Ch’ung Hui

Don’t believe at all! Dont’ believe at all!

A monk asked: What his meant by man’s greatest striving?

The Master replied: He destroys anger, greed, and folly.

-P’u Chi

This puzzle of right and wrong is delicate and difficult to distiinguish. One must study it closely when the mind is pure and the comtemplation calm.

-Hsuan Chiao

The Emperor asked, What is meant by meditation?

The Master replied, To keep one’s mind free from surrounding influences, whatever situations one’s six senses may be in: this is called meditation.

-Hung Pien

The Emperor asked, What is meant by wisdom?

The Master replied, To be empty of both of subjectivity and objectivity, and to have no difficulty in the reflection of oneself: this is called wisdom.

-Hung Pien

To put it simply, we must be free from attachment all the time.

For one who is free from attachment there is nothing to grasp as good and nothing to be rejected as evil. Only when one is free from entrapment from outside can the state be studied for the first time.

-Hsia T’ang, I Tuan

Leap and the net will appear.

-John Burroughs

Look when you look

hear when you hear

taste what you taste

smell what you smell.

-Ginsberg

We learn all things by relying on our consciousness. The existence of things, however, is not to be trusted in the end.

-Fa Yung

The kingdom of Heaven is within you… Seek ye first the kingdom of Heaven

and all things will be added unto you.

-Jesus

Memory is incomplete experience.

-Krishnamurti

There is no enlightenment outside of daily life.

-Thich Nhat Hanh

Zen has no business with ideas.

-D. T. Suzuki

When remaining in awareness itself, every thought movement, no matter what kind, is like a drawing in air.

-Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche

When we are unable to find tranquility within ourselves, it is useless to

seek it elsewhere.

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and

know the place for the first time.

T.S. Eliot

When thinking goes, there is only clear mind. Thinking comes and goes, comes and goes. You must not be attached to the coming or the going.

-Seung Sahn

Happiness in comfort is not real happiness. When you can be happy in the

midst of hardship, then you see the true potential of the mind.

-Huanchu Daoren

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.

-Shunryu Suzuki

I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.

-Mark Twain

Since body and mind are indivisible, so are past and present.

-Keizan

… there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison.

-Shakespeare

The biggest barrier between me and peace is my instinct to analyze why I

didn’t, don’t, or might not have it. Stillness silences that instinct.

-Deschene

Can we come back time and time again, with infinite patience, to what is actually taking place right now … and hear the sound of rain, motor noises around us, the brightness and darkness of the room, the sky, the smell in the air — not just the reactions to all of this, but simply perceiving sounds and sights and the feel of what is actually taking place?

-Toni Packer

Attention comes from nowhere. It has no cause. It belongs to no one. When it functions effortlessly, there is no duality.

-Toni Packer

Truly seeing that the "me" is nothing but a habitual mental construct is freeing beyond imagination.

-Toni Packer

Awareness this moment reveals what needs to be done or left alone.

-Toni Packer

Watching the moon at night, its amazing glow among countless stars scattered across the heavens — was there any effort to keep thoughts from intruding, or did it simply happen?

-Toni Packer

As soon as you have made a thought, laugh at it.

-Lao-tsu

The measure of mental health is flexibility. … The essence of illness is the freezing of behavior into unalterable and insatiable patterns.

-Kubie

The purpose is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes. This is to put everything under control in its widest sense.

-Shunryu Suzuki

I believe that this is the great thing to understand: that awareness per se, of and by itself, is curative.

-Perls

Please try releasing your hold. Open your hands. Just let everything go, and see: What is body and mind. What are daily activities? … Take a careful look at these things again and again.

-Dogen

Question: If someone is determined to reach enlightenment, what is the most essential method he can practice?

Answer: The most essential method, which includes all other methods, is beholding the mind.

Question: But how can one method include all others?

Anwser: The mind is the root from which all things grow. If you can understand the mind, everything else is included.

-Bodhidharma

Zen teaches nothing; it merely enabls us to wake up and become aware. It does not teach, it points.

-D.T. Suzuki

This is myself and this is another.

Be free of this bond which encompasses you about,

And your own self is thereby released.

-Treasury of Songs

At the moment you are most in awe of all there is about life that you don’t understand, you are closer to understanding it all than at any other time.

Jane Wagner

You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.

-Buddha

The kind of life you have is not so important. The most important thing is to be able to enjoy life without being fooled by things.

-Shunru Suzuki

If you want to find something interesting … enjoy your life in every moment, observe what you have now, and truly live in your surroundings.

-Shunru Suzuki

When you live completely in each moment, without expecting anything, you have no idea of time.

-Shunru Suzuki

When you are not thinking that you have another moment, then naturally you can accept things as they are, you can see things as they are. You will have perfect wisdom at that time.

-Shunru Suzuki

… we’re creating what we’re hating…

-Brian Warner

Keep in mind the tailorbird,

at home on a single branch.

-Han-shan

When any single thought arises, both good and evil are there. If one will think about the foundation of good and evil, and do good and refrain from evil, his mind will become correct of itself.

-Takuan Soho

Concealed within an error or mistake is a lesson to be more attentive.

-Unknown

Allow attention to always be your guide.

-Unknown

Haven’t you yourself created the mind that thinks up all the illusory conditions? This insight must be perfectly incorporated.

-Hongzhi

Just when involved in deliberations, turn around from the stream of thoughts.

-Hongzhi

Please take good care of yourselves.

-Hakuin

To be completely concentrated on what you do, that is simplicity.

-Shunru Suzuki

Each time you shoot, shoot with confidence.

-Shunru Suzuki

It is a big mistake to think that the best way to express yourself is to do whatever you want, acting however you please.

-Shunru Suzuki

Notice how much happier you are when you are not wishing things are different from what they are.

-Unknown

Round or square, big or small don’t belong to reality but are simply ideas.

-Shunry Suzuki

From your first day at school you are cut off from life to make theories.

-Taisen Deshimaru

The Master asked: "Do you smell the mountain laurel?"

"Yes," replied the student.

"There," the Master answered. "I have held nothing back from you."

-Zen Mondo

In the cultivation of the mind, our emphasis should not be on concentration, but on attention. Concentration is a process of forcing the mind to narrow down to a point, whereas attention is without frontiers.

-Krishnamurti

Though it has no thought of keeping watch, it’s not for naught that the scarecrow stands in the grain field.

-Dogen

Questioner: Can you explain the here and now?

It is consciousness of time and space. What is happening here and now is what matters. Don’t think about the past or the future, but concentrate on here and now. When you urinate, just urinate; when you sleep, just sleep; when you eat, practice zazen, walk, make love, exactly the same. Concentrate on the present and act and nothing else. If you are not happy here and now, you never will be.

-Taisen Deshimaru

Put it down!

-Seung Sahn

To know what you are doing at any particular time is the most important thing.

-Shunru Suzuki

When you have a problem, see if you can find out for yourself why you have a problem.

-Shunru Suzuki

If you cling to an idea you create, like a self or an objective reality, you will be lost in the objective world you create with your mind.

-Shunru Suzuki

When you do something, you should burn yourself completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.

-Shunru Suzuki

When you are not aware of your problems, they will appear unexpectedly. … So it is better to see your problems as soon as possible.

-Shunru Suzuki

The point is to attain complete composure. Ordinary effort associated with comparative thinking will not help you.

-Shunru Suzuki

Please take care of your practice. Be very kind with yourself.

Thank you very much.

-Shunru Suzuki

The most important aspect in Buddhism is mind, and mind means attitude.

-Tsoknyi

In order to obtain freedom, we need to abandon conceptual mind. … This is something to think about.

-Tsoknyi

Instead of getting caught up in whatever you want in that moment, try to be more stable in yourself.

-Tsoknyi

Meditation is simply paying attention to what happens.

-Tsokni

Our theories of the eternal are as valuable as those of a chick, which has not broken its way through its shell, might form of the outside world.

-Buddha

When you are deluded and full of doubt, even a thousand books of scripture are not enough.

When you have realized understanding, even one word is too much.

-Ren-yang

Rather that spend aeons without an awakening, have no second thoughts.

-Jakushitsu

First thought, best thought.

-Shunryu Suzuki

Mindfullness destroys habitual tendencies.

-Tsoknyi

Most of our problems in life come from not allowing things to happen. … We hope that something won’t happen, or are afraid that something will happen. … If we would just allow things to manifest and arise openly, our problems would be greatly reduced.

-Tsoknyi

The main point is that we need to allow confusion to dissolve. Confusion means to mistake something for what it is not, to misunderstand something in a way that is not actually true.

-Tsoknyi

The correct way of practicing … is mentioned in all the vehicles. It is simply presence of mind, being awake to whether one is experiencing thought movement or stillness.

-Tsoknyi

Simply remaining in the noticing or knowing quality [of whether there is thought or stillness] is a correct basis for true practice.

-Tsoknyi

Let be in equanimity,

Immediately there is a quality of freedom…

-Tsoknyi

Simply allow yourself to be empty, an empty continuity which is also awake or cognizant. Within that state, everything can then unfold or takes place freely. Open mind is the basis. Remember, empty doesn not mean vacant; it means wide-open.

-Tsoknyi

In any case, be happy. Don’t entertain a lot of pointless worries, repeating the same words over and over again in your mind. A lot of our thoughts are repetitions, 30 or 35 times the same thought. And we play and replay the same ten themes, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Then we start all over again, thinking about the same ten things again. It doesn’t help that much, does it?

-Tsoknyi

Think about how much time we put into washing ourselves, freshening up, brushing our teeth, putting on make-up, and so on. It’s just as important to fix up your mind. If your mind is down, pull it up. Take charge of yourself.

-Tsoknyi

In fact, this is the main point of the Buddhist teachings. Be aware of your own mind. Let it be undisturbed and free of confusion.

-Tsoknyi

If we complicate our own lives and focus too much on ourselves, we forget how to be simple, and we are never happy.

-Tsoknyi

Allwo your present wakefulness to simply be;

Totally without fabrication.

-Tsoknyi

Son, you’re not bound by perceiving, but by clinging. So cut your clinging.

-Tsoknyi (quoting Naropa)

To summarize, you need to be totally free of any clinging, like an utterly pure and cloudless sky. To be like that just for a second is very pleasant.

-Tsoknyi

We find that we can be free by simply resting in natural awareness, by simply letting be. That is how to liberate any disturbing emotion, any thought, any habitual tendency.

-Tsoknyi

Just like a drawing upon water which vanishes as soon as it is made, we discover that a thought can be liberated simultaneously with its arising.

-Tsoknyi

Many of us make our lives very complicated with all the thoughts and ideas we have. If our thinking is very complex, even a small task can become too much.

-Tsoknyi

To sum up, the more loose and free you can be inside, the more deeply relaxed and open, the better.

-Tsoknyi

Sometime go outside and sit,

In the evening at sunset,

When there’s a slight breeze that touches your body,

And makes the leaves and the trees move gently.

You’re not trying to do anything, really.

You’re simply allowing yourself to be,

Very open from deep within,

Without holding onto anything whatsoever.

Don’t bring something back from the past, from a memory.

Don’t plan that something should happen.

Don’t hold onto anything in the present.

Nothing you perceive needs to be nailed down.

Simply let experience take place, very freely,

So that your empty, open heart

Is suffused with the tenderness of true compassion.

-Tsoknyi

No teaching could be more direct than just to sit down.

-Shunryu Suzuki

My religion is to live — an die — without regret.

-Milarepa

On her 116th birthday, when the oldest woman in the world was asked what was the secret to her long life, she answered, "I mind my own business."

-Besse Cooper

A student asked, "If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?"

"It doesn’t matter," Suzuki Roshi answered.

One night afer a dharma talk, I asked Suzuki Roshi a question about life and death. The answer he gave made my fear of death, for that moment, pop like a bubble.

He looked at me and said, "You will always exist in the universe in some form."

One day in a lecture Suzuki Roshi said, "When you are completely absorbed in your breathing, there is no self. What is your breathing? That breathing is not you, not air. What is it? It is not self at all. When there is no self, you have absolute freedom. Because you have a silly idea of self, you have a lot of problems."

-Shunryu Suzuki

Things go the way the mind goes.

-Shunryu Suzuki

The most important thing … is … to … find … out … what … is … the … most important thing.

-Shunryu Suzuki

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

-Bodhidharma

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

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

-Huang Po

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

-Huang Po

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

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

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

-Huang Po

When I inhale,

I don’t dwell upon things.

When I exhale,

I dont’ pursue thoughts.

Thus I breathe the sutra,

As-it-is-ness.

Hundreds of thousands of millions of times.

-Osho

The mind is everything. What you think, you become.

-Buddha

The sage keeps to the deed that consists in taking no action and practices the teaching that uses no words.

-Lao Tsu

I hear the unblown flute

in the deep summer shadows

of the Temple of Suma.

-Basho

Silence is the essential condition of happiness.

-Heine

When the realisation came that the mind could observe itself, there were no distracting thoughts.

-Krishnamurti

What you are…what you actually are, is being. Being is not the mind thinking. Thinking is a movement, a motion. Being is the silence that precedes the motion. You cannot see it; you cannot grasp it because you are it. The feeling that you are. The unadorned naked awareness that is always there, rarely heeded, is what you always have been, always will be. Cannot not be. You can’t look for it, because it is what is looking. It is like space, you can’t see it but everything is in it. Everything is it. So I say to you, ‘be aware when you are unaware’ let its presence warm you, fill you. Be present in the Presence.

-Krishnamurti, from a conversation with (actor) Terence Stamp

What have I

to bequeath as a legacy?

the flowers of spring;

Hill cuckoos of summer;

maple leaves of autumn.

-Ryokan

Unless we agree to suffer we cannot be free from suffering.

-D. T. Suzuki

If there is to be any peace, it will come through being, not having.

-Henry Miller

I discovered the secret of the sea in meditation upon the dewdrop.

-Gibran

Stop, stop. Do not speak. The ultimate truth is not even to think.

-Buddha

Having failed to distinguish thoughts from things, we then fail to distinguish words from thoughts. We think that if we can label a thing we have understood it.

-Sangarakshita

Think with the whole body.

-Taisen Deshimaru

The ego, being a flimsy construction and being bound up in time and space, will have to fall apart. The ego, in fact, continuously falls apart and has to be reinforced by vanity, greed, jealousy, and evil.

-Wetering

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

-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

Beauty and wonder are accessible through simple and routine activities, if

and when you care for and identify with what it is that you are doing.

-Brian Curtis (artist)

Students of the way need study no doctrines whatever, but learn only how to avoid seeking for and attaching yourselves to anything.

-Huang Po

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

One of the great teachings of Hui-neng is to trust the word in one’s own heart. To know that is all one needs.

-Barragato

The Buddha was once asked, "What is the true teaching?" The Buddha’s response was, "Look inside yourselves and that which you know to be a good thing to do, do, and that which you know not to be a good thing to do, don’t do."

-Barragato (quoting the Buddha)

Nothing is born, nothing is destroyed. Away with your dualism, your likes and dislikes. Every single thing is just the One Mind.

-Huang Po

Question: Should we not seek for anything at all?

Answer: By conceding this, you would save yourself a lot of mental effort.

-Huang Po

Observe things as they are and don’t pay attention to other people.

-Huang Po

You should know how to put all mental activity to rest and thus achieve tranquility. Certainly, do not begin by thinking things out and ending up in perplexity.

-Huang Po

Our ultimate aim should be to change deluded experience, not to eliminate experiencing itself.

-Tsoknyi

… everything stands or falls with whether or not we cling to them.

-Tsoknyi

What should you do?

Wherever you are, examine your mind with accurate awareness.

Calm yourself, quiet yourself, master your senses. Look right into the

source of mind, always keep it shinning bright, clear and pure. Do not give

rise to an indifferent mind.

-Hongren

It is said that we should not fear the arising of thoughts, just fear being slow to notice.

-Chinul

Not to be subject to affliction is what’s meant by liberation.

There’s no other liberation.

-Bodhidharma

Question: If someone is determined to reach enlightenment, which is the most essential method he can practice?

Answer: The most essential method, which includes all other methods, is beholding the mind.

-Bodhidharma

Everything good and bad comes from your own mind. To find something beyond the mind is impossible.

-Bodhidharma

Everyone knows enough to pursue what he does not know,

but no one knows enough to pursue what he already knows.

-Chuang Tzu

The way to do is to be.

-Lao Tzu

Let everything find its own enjoyment.

-Chuang Tzu

By being alive to difficulty one can avoid it.

-Lao Tzu

When minds are conditioned to discover truth in subtle complexities, it may become emotionally repugnant to accept a principle so simple that it seems to make intellect obsolete.

-Thurman

Make it a secret principle in either seeing or hearing not to detain the mind in one place.

-Takuan Soho

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 do not need to seek reality, just stop entertaining views and opinions.

When doing the inner work, the instant a thought arises, immediately break through it by awakeness.

-Chinul

Be master of mind; don’t be mastered by mind.

Just be aware, mirrorlike, right now.

-Pai-chang

What I teach people just requires you not to take on the confusion of others.

If you need to act, then act, without any further hesitation or doubt.

-Lin-chi

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

People know good and bad but not how good and bad begin and end; is that complete knowledge? Is it complete knowledge to know the end but not the beginning?

-Ming-chiao

If you can look back again and again into the source of mind, whatever you are doing, not sticking to any image of a person or self at all, then this is "turning the light around wherever you are." This is the finest practice.

-T’ai i chin hua tsung chih

Those who seek the truth by means of the intellect and learning only get further and further away from it. Not till your thoughs cease their branching here an there, not till you abandon all thoughts of seeking for something, not till your mind is motionless as wood or stone, will you be on the right road to the Gate.

-Huang-Po

Stop thinking, and end your problems.

-Lao-Tsu

In one shrill cry

the pheasant has swallowed

the broad field.

-Yamei

Flow with whatever may happen and let your mind be free: Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.

-Chuang-Tzu

He who grasps loses.

-Tao Te Ching

The first snow:

the leaves of the daddofils

are bending.

-Basho

Can’t stop the thoughts arising and disappearing in your mind,

True awareness shining boundlessly, you must focus on the one that doesn’t move.

To realize there are neither forms nor names, nothing to pursue,

Sword of Wisdom has been used, must hurry to hone it.

-Lin Chi

It is said that we are the same in essence but different in feeling. There is no difference in feeling either; it is just that habits develop unnoticed, evolving in a stream, continuing to the present, so that their defiling influence cannot be shed.

-T’ai i chin hua tsung chih

… it is the mind that divides itself as feeling, intellect, and environment; it is the mind that invents the outside agency; it is the mind that creates the problem.

-Krishnamurti

What is the teaching of Buddhism? It is a teaching to see what is.

-Takuan Soho

Do not fear anything. When you fear you will fail. Fearing is for ordinary days. On important occasions do not fear. Do not fear.

-Takuan Soho

This is the miracle of perception – perceive with a heart and mind that are completely cleansed of the past. Be simple.

-Krishnamurti

Freedom is the state of mind in which there is no form of resistance whatsoever.

-Krishnamurti

Belief is one thing and "what is" is another. Belief is a word, a thought, and this is not the thing, any more than your name is actually you.

-Krishnamurti

I wish to believe

but belief is a

graveyard.

-Bukowski

You will always experience what you believe and nothing else. And this invalidates your experience.

-Krishnamurti

Questioner: Do you really have no illusion at all about anything?

I am not all the time measuring myself or others. This freedom from measurement comes about when you are really living with what is – neither wishing to change it nor judging it in terms of good and bad. Living with something is not the acceptance of it: it is there whether you accept it or not.

-Krishnamurti

The beginning of wisdom is to understand yourself. Begin understanding yourself.

-Krishnamurti

See what happens when the brain is completely still. See what happens.

-Krishnamurti