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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If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?

 -Dogen

Moment after moment, completely dedicate yourself to listening to your inner voice.

-Shunryu Suzuki

All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.

-Buddha

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

-Tsoknyi Rinpoche

The mind is everything. What you think you become.

-Buddha

When you realize how perfect everything is you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky.

-Buddha

The way is to have a complete experience with full feeling in every moment, not to use each moment to think about the past or future, trying to make sense of it all.

-Shunryu Suzuki

It is only because our life is so habitually and so firmly based on a mechanical understanding that we think that our everyday life is repetitious. But it is not so. No one can repeat the same thing. Whatever you do, it will be different from what you do in the next moment. That is why we should not waste our time.

-Shunryu Suzuki

Because things don’t actually go as you expect, there is suffering.

-Shunryu Suzuki

Those who know don’t talk. Those who talk don’t know.

Lao-tsu

As Layman P’ang was dying, his friend, the Governor Yu Ti Yu, came to visit one last time. P’ang put his head on his friend’s knee and spoke his last words:

"I beg you, see all phenomena as empty. Beware of thinking as real what is non-existent. Take care of yoruself in this world of shadows and echoes."

-Husan-chien

The only way you can endure your pain is to let it be painful.

-Shunryu Suzuki

Question: "In just a few words, what is Buddhism all about?"

Accept what is as it is and help it to be its best.

-Shunryu Suzuki

In reflecting on our problems, we should include ourselves.

-Shunryu Suzuki

When you practice as though this were your last moment, you will have

freedom from everything.

-Shunryu Suzuki

The most important thing is to be able to enjoy your life without being

folled by things.

-Shunryu Suzuki

First thought, best thought.

-Shunryu Suzuki

Like the birds I came,

No road under my feet.

A golden-chained gate unlocks itself.

-Shunryu Suzuki

The way to study Zen is to be always aware of yourself, to be careful, to be sincere with yourself. …always remain conscious of what you are doing, of what is going on.

-Shunryu Suzuki

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Think the non-thought.

-Dogen

The best use one can make of his mind is to distrust it.

-Fenelon

How not to be lost in our problems is our practice.

-Shunryu Suzuki

The most important thing is to confront yourself and to be yourself. Then naturally you can see and accept things as they are. You will have perfect wisdom at that time.

-Shunryu Suzuki

If we don’t compound our problems we’ll be able to deal with them.

-Shunryu Suzuki

I don’t know, is the first principle of our practice.

-Shunryu Suzuki

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

-Bodhidharma

Understanding comes through being aware of what is.

-Krishnamurti

The problem is the mind itself, not the problems it breeds.

-Krishnamurti

Is there really any time at all apart from chronological time? Obviously there is time as yesterday, but is there time as the mind thinks of it?

-Krishnamurti

Surely time, psychological time, is the product of the mind.

-Krishnamurti

We never do anything well until we cease to think about the manner of doing it.

– Hazlitt

If you are thinking, you can’t understand Zen. Anything that can be written in a book, anything that can be said – all this is thinking … but if you read with a mind that has cut off all thinking, then Zen books, sutras, and Bibles are all the truth. So is the barking of a dog or the crowing of a rooster. All things are teaching you at every moment, and these sounds are even better teachings than Zen books.

-Seung Sahn

Only in the present do things happen.

-Borges

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The Great Way is not difficult

for those who are not attached to their preferences.

-Sengtsan

What is that which is silent? Look into it by examining awareness.

-Krishnamurti

The more you talk and think about it,

the further astray you wander from the truth.

Stop talking and thinking,

and there is nothing you will not be able to know.

-Seng-T’san

Once your mind contains no plan

wherever you are it’s alert

-Han-shan

Adopt the pace of nature; her secret is patience.

-Unknown

Do not be bothered by anything.

-Shunryu Suzuki

The point of the teachings is to control your own mind.

-Buddha

Learning to ignore things is one of the great paths to inner peace.

-Sawyer

Say nothing and saw wood.

-Vermont Zen

People naturally fear misfortune and long for good fortune, but if the distinction is carefully studied, misfortune often turns out to be good fortune and good fortune to be misfortune.

The wise man learns to meet the changing circumstances of life with an equitable spirit, being neither elated by success nor depressed by failure. Thus one realizes the truth of non-duality.

-Buddha

If you can doubt at points where other people find no impulse to doubt, you are making progress.

-Chuang Tzu

The mind that is not disturbed by things as they occur, that remains pure and tranquil under all circumstances, is the true mind and should be the master.

-Buddha

There are two kinds of worldly passions that defile and cover over the pure, true nature.

The first is the passion for analysis and discussion by which people become confused in judgement. The second is the passion for emotional experience by which people’s values become confused.

-Buddha

It is natural for people to think and act selfishly and egotistically and, because of it, it is equally natural for suffering and unhappiness to follow.

-Buddha

To live a pure unselfish life, one must count nothing as one’s own in the midst of abundance.

-Buddha

Do not become attached to the things you like, do not maintain aversion to the things you dislike. Sorrow, fear, and bondage come from one’s likes and dislikes.

-Buddha

It is worthy to perform the present duty well and without fail; do not seek to avoid or postpone it till tomorrow. But acting now, one can live a good day.

-Buddha

Do not rely on others. Do not rely on anything other than yourselves.

-Barragato (quoting the Buddha)

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

It is the very mind itself

That leads the mind astray.

-Takuan Soho

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

-Huang Po

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Be independent and cling to nothing.

-I-hsuan

Knowledge is learning something new every day.

Wisom is letting go of something every day.

-Zen saying

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

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

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

Everyone knows enough to pursue what he does not know,

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

-Chuang Tzu

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 liberation. There is no other liberation.

-Bodhidharma

-Hagen

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When thoughts arise, then do all things arise. When thoughts vanish, then do all things vanish.

-Huang Po

All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.

-Buddha

We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.

-Buddha

See what the present is.

-Maharshi

I try to be a good man but all that comes

of trying is I feel more guilty.

-Ikkyu

I now know that I’m not "depressed." All my problems are because I can’t control my negative thoughts.

(overheard)

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

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

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 would spend all your time – walking, standing, sitting and lying down – learning to halt the concept-forming activities of your own mind, you could be sure of ultimately attaining the goal [of liberation].

-Huang Po

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Is there anything at all, even in the slightest?

-Keizan

Zen is not a particular state but the normal state: silent, peaceful, unagitated. In Zazen [meditation] neither intention, analysis, specific effort nor imagination take place. It’s enough just to be without hypocrisy, dogmatism, arrogance — embracing all opposites.

-Taisen Deshimaru

In all our various activities each day, is there anything we lack?

-Lin Chi

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

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

-Krishnamurti

If anything is not forgotten, you’ve spent your life in vain.

-Ch’ing-tu

Do not be bothered by anything.

-S. Suzuki

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

… 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

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Move your bowels, piss, get dressed, eat your rice, and if you get tired, then lie down. Fools may laugh at me, but the wise will understand.

-Lin-chi

What counts is this present moment – there’s nothing that requires a lot of time. Everything I am saying to you is for the moment only, medicine to cure the disease. Ultimately, it has no true reality.

-Lin-chi

If you are a person who honestly wants to learn the Way, don’t go looking for the world’s mistakes, but set about as fast as you can looking for a true and proper understanding.

-Lin-chi

The way I see it, one shouldn’t be averse to anything.

-Lin-chi

Do not be bothered by anything.

-Shunryu Suzuki

Learn to put a stop to thoughts and never look for something outside yourselves.

-Lin-chi

If the mind differentiates, its nature and manifestations become separated from one another. But so long as it does not differentiate, its nature and manifestations do not become separated.

-Lin-chi

… You insist on mistaking idle names for reality. This is a great error. Even if something did exist, it would in all cases be no more than an environment that changes with what it depends on.

-Lin-chi

Is there anything at all, even in the slightest?

-Keizan

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

-Bodhidharma

As long as you seek something it can only lead to suffering. Better to do nothing.

-Lin-chi

Whether the student practices swordsmanship, archery, caligraphy, or tea ceremony, any conscious understanding of the practice that remains in the mind will only cause conflict during a performance.

-Munenori

Eighty years and eight,

no craving, no attachment.

Let’s go back home,

when the water clears, the moon

appears.

-Tai-ch’ien

Truth and reality in art do not arise until you no longer understand what you are doing.

-Matisse

Very little is needed to make a happy life. It is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.

-Aurelius

The secret is within yourself.

-Hui-neng

To be a warrior is to learn to be genuine in every moment of your life.

-Chogyam Trungpa

It’s almost impossible to overestimate the unimportance of most things.

-Logue

Our mind is like a clear glass of water. If we put salt into the water, it becomes salty; sugar, it becomes sugar water. … But originally the water is clear. No thinking, no mind. No mind, no problem.

-Seung Sahn

Think of Zen, of the Void, of Good and Evil and you are bound hand and foot. Think only and entirely and completely of what you are doing at the moment and you are free as a bird.

-R. H. Blyth

The test of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time.

-Fitzgerald

The sound of the water says what I think.

-Chuang-Tzu

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Why, is anything the matter? Take care!

-Yunmen

What if ‘not directing one’s mind’ were it?

-Yunmen

You simply must pay attention! Take care.

-Yunmen

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 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

Turn your attention back upon yourself and observe.

-Lin-chi

What you must do is step back and figure out your own standpoint: what logic is there to it?

-Yun-men

When it blows

this mountain wind

is fierce.

And when it doesn’t blow

it doesn’t blow.

-Ikkyu

It is only in our decisions that we are important.

-Sartre

No matter where we are, no matter what we face, we have to take care of this moment. That’s all.

-Katagiri

When it is time to get up, just get up. This is the way to enter the doors of a golden, peaceful world.

-Katagiri

The totality of your life is beyond your capacity to judge and evaluate.

-Katagiri

It is only when we see things according to our individual perspective that life becomes filled with miserable events.

-Katagiri

Observe closely. Be fully allive in each moment. This is the real way to live.

-Katagiri

When one makes false calculation by accepting the recognition of oneself as a being, a dichotomy of active and passive occurs that may be called delusion.

-Chih

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

With everyone born human, a poet – an artist – is born, who dies young and who is survived by an adult.

-Charles Sainte-Beuve

Of an early death

showing no sign

the cicada sings.

-Basho

The Buddha taught that there is no ego either in man or in dharma. … The flower has no ego. In the spring it blooms; in the autumn it dies. The stream has no ego. The wind blows and waves appear, the river bed drops abruptly and there is a waterfall. We ourselves must really feel these things.

-Sokei-an

Correct you attention and quiet your mind from the time you arise in the morning, and whatever you say or do, review it carefully and see where it comes from and what makes all this happen.

-Yuanyu

Observe your present state – what is the reason for it! Why do you become confused?

-Foyan

The shortcut of Zen is to leave the present and directly experience the state before birth, before the division of wholeness.

-Mi-an

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Be master of mind; dont’ be mastered by mind.

-Kuei-yang

Just be aware, mirrorlike, right now.

-Kuei-yang

Let the wise one watch over the mind,

so hard to perceive, so artful,

alighting where it wishes;

a watchfully protected mind

will bring happiness.

-Dhammapada

Sages use the mind deliberately,

based on its essence.

With the support of the spirit,

they finish what they begin.

Thus they sleep without dreams

and wake without troubles.

-Huainanzi

If you do not continue thoughts, thoughts cannot arise by themselves. Like and empty space, like a mass of fire, letting your breathing flow naturally out and in, sit decisively – without getting involved in anything at all.

-Ejo

More wisdom is latent in things-as-they-are than in all the words men use.

-Antoine de Saint-Exupery

If you want to awaken it is necessary to always observe an examine yourself.

When errant thoughts suddenly arise, do not go along with them at all; reduce them, reduce them, reduce them, until you reach the point of non-contrivance, which alone is the ultimate end.

Therefore it is said that even as you fully cultivate myriad practices, only no thought is to be considered a basis.

-Chinul

The mind is like a fish out of water which thrashes and throws itself about, when thoughts try to shake off their cravings.

As the bowman makes straight his arrows, so the wise man straightens his unsteady mind.

-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

Do not remark on the faults of others, but see what you yourself have done or left undone.

-Dhammapada

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

-Chinul

Better than a hundred years of uncontrolled existence is one day of thoughtful and meditative life.

-Dhammapada

The forests and flowers, the grasses and leaves, people and animals, great and small, long and short, square and round, all appear at once, without depending on the discriminations of your thoughts and attention.

-Ejo

When you breathe out, know you are breathing out; when you breathe in, know you are breathing in. Focus your consciousness on your breathing, not letting consciousness go up or down or out or in, not thinking discursively, not making intellectual or emotional interpretations, not trying to figure anything out, simply being aware of outgoing and incoming breathing, not missing a single breath.

If your concentration is pure and single, truth will become manifest and there will be no subjectivity in your standpoint.

-Man-an

[Instructions on sitting meditation.]

Space has a name but no form.

-Bodhidharma

If you seek direct understanding, don’t hold on to any appearance whatsoever, and you’ll succeed. I have no other advice.

-Bodhidharma

It is good to master your movements, to control your words and thoughts. The seeker who is in control in every way is joyful in freedom.

-Dhammapada

Do your work attentively. The one who lives thus is indeed a sage.

-Dhammapada

The sage knows what to do and what to leave undone.

-Dhammapada

Never offend in anything you say or do.

-Dhammapada

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Although it does not

mindfully keep guard,

In the small mountain fields

the scarecrow

Does not stand in vain.

Everything is like this.

-Bukkoku

If you’re not sure, don’t act.

-Bodhidharma

Using the mind to look for reality is delusion.

Not using the mind to look for reality is awareness.

-Bodhidharma

When we’re deluded

there’s a world to escape to.

When we’re aware

there’s nothing to escape.

-Bodhidharma

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.

-Bodhidharma

That which exists exists in relation to that which doesn’t exist.

-Bodhidharma

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

There’s no other liberation.

-Bodhidharma

Great understanding is broad and unhurried;

little understand is cramped and busy.

-Chuang Tzu

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

Running around and accusing others is not as good as laughing, and enjoying a good laugh is not as good as going along with things. Be content to go along and forget about change and then you can enter the mysterious oneness of Heaven.

-Chuang Tzu

Understanding that rests in what does not understand is the finest.

-Chuang Tzu

What is is the was of what shall be.

-Lao Tzu

The fish trap exists because of the fish; once you’ve gotten the fish you can forget the trap. Words exist because of meaning; once you’ve gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can have a word with him?

-Chuang Tzu

The past is already past –

don’t try to recapture it.

The present doesn’t stay –

don’t try to hold on to it.

The future is not arrived –

don’t think about it.

Whatever comes to your eye, leave it be.

There are no commandments to keep.

-Layman P’ang

The sage is not still because he takes stillness to be good and therefore is still. The ten thousand things are insufficient to distract his mind – that is the reason he is still.

-Chuang Tzu

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Surely, any psychological state can be changed.

-Krishnamurti

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

Let everything find its own enjoyment.

-Chuang Tzu

Whatever it is

is nothing but the world of delusion

since even "death" does not turn out

to be a real vacation.

-Ikkyu

All delusion is routine misunderstanding because of relying on thoughts.

-Bankei

Even written down,

they’re just marks made in a dream;

after waking up,

there’s no one else who asks.

-Ikkyu

To be limited to understanding only what is understood – this is shallow indeed!

That which gives form to the formed is itself formless – can you understand that?

-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

Only when that which has form learns to imitate the formless will it find serenity.

-Chuang Tzu

Before the rain stops, a bird begins to sing.

-Shunryu Suzuki

I examine what is within me and am never blocked off from the Way.

-Chuang Tzu

Let go your hold!

-Unknown

Everything is but we think it.

-Aurelius

All of our problems begin the moment we begin to think about them.

-Unknown

Countless paths

lead to the mountain’s summit

yet from it

the same moon shines

over all the land.

-Ikkyu

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Take a pole one foot long, cut half of it away every day, and at the end of ten thousand generations you’ll still have some left.

-Chuang Tzu

What is contrary cannot fail to be injured. What moves [when it shouldn’t] cannot fail to be wrong. The sage is reluctant to begin an affair, and so he always ends in success.

-Chuang Tzu

What understanding cannot understand is something that debate can never encompass.

-Chuang Tzu

Nothing should be treated more carefully than anything else.

-Thich Nhat Hanh

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

-Takuan Soho

There is a saying, "Sever the edge between before and after."

-Takuan Soho

There is a saying, "Sever the edge between before and after." Not ridding the mind of previous moments, allowing traces of the present mind to remain – both are bad. This means one should cut right through the interval between past and present. It means not detaining the mind.

-Takuan Soho

When a bird flies through an empty sky, it becomes less clear as it gets farther away, and we come to think of it as having disappeared.

-Takuan Soho

At the approach of his death he instructed his disciples, "Bury my body in the mountain behind the temple, cover it with dirt and go home. Read no sutras, hold no ceremony. Receive no gifts from either monks or laity. Let the monks wear their robes, eat their meals, and carry on as on normal days." At his final moment, he wrote the Chinese character for "dream," put down the brush, and died.

(From the translator’s introduction to Takuan Soho’s "The Unfettered Mind")

It is a good viewpoint to see the world as a dream. When you have something like a nightmare, you will wake up and tell yourself that it was only a dream. It is said that the world we live in is not a bit different from this.

-Tsunetomo (from the "Hagakure")

All living beings form habits of action influenced by subjective feelings and affections based on ignorance of the essence of awareness.

-Chinul

When asked about the location of the true mind, Chinul replied, "It never leaves the profound calm of the immediate."

-Chinul

If you want to comprehend the great matter, constantly ask yourself who is hosting your seeing and hearing.

No matter what you are doing, whether you are walking, standing still, sitting down, or lying down, whether you are active or silent, whether you are in pleasant circumstances or unpleasant situations, plunge your spirit into this question: What is it that sees everything here and now? What is it that hears?

-Hakuin

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

Just be aware, mirrorlike, right now.

-Pai-chang

There is no real philosophy until the mind turns around and examines itself.

-Will Durant

My advice to you: take a rest. Have nothing to do. Put on your closthes, eat your food, move your bowels. That’s all. No death to fear. … No Nirvana to achieve and no wisdom to attain. Try to be just an ordinary man having nothing to do.

-Hsuan-chien

In spring, hundreds of flowers;

In autumn, a harvest moon;

In summer, a refreshing breeze;

In winter, snow will accompany you.

If useless things do not hang in your mind,

Any season is a good season.

-Zen poem

You become what you think about all day long.

-Emerson

Die like a wild animal just dropping in the forest.

-Unknown

Who is it that is hearing at this very moment?

-Bassui

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