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!

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

A journey of ten thousand miles begins with the first step.

(Unknown)

[That hit me today, for the first time, as having as much to do with persevereace as "the first step."]

By being alive to difficulty one can avoid it.

-Lao Tzu

The truth of the Way lies in looking out for oneself… Suppose there were a man who took the priceless pearl of the Marquis of Sui and used it as a pellet to shoot at a sparrow a thousand yards up in the air. The world would certainly laugh at him. Why? Because that which he is using is of such great value, and that which he is trying to acquire is so trifling. And life – surely it is of a greater value than the pearl of Marquis of Sui!

-Chuang Tzu

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

-Chuang Tzu

If you don’t know that you have something, can it be said that you have it?

(Unknown)

Because all things originally have no mental images,

in each moment of

awareness,

they are unborn and unperishing.

-Chinul

It is upon awakening that we realize it was a dream.

-Takuan Soho

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

When facing a single tree, if you look at a single one of its leaves, you will not see all the others. When the eye is not set on any one leaf, and you face the tree with nothing at all in mind, any number of leaves are visible to the eye without limit. But if a single leaf holds the eye, it will be as if the remaining leaves are not there.

-Takuan Soho

… It is essential that the mind does not stop.

Although the form of this unmoving mind is revered as a god, respected as a Buddha, and called the mind of Zen or the Ultimate Meaning, if one thinks things through and afterwards speaks, even though he utter golden words and mysterious verses, it will merely be the affliction of the abiding place.

-Takuan Soho

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

-Takuan Soho

The Right Mind is the mind that does not remain in one place.

The Confused Mind is the mind that, thinking something over, congeals in one place.

When the Right Mind is lost, it is lacking in function here and there. For this reason, it is important not to lose it.

-Takuan Soho

Wishing things were different is not as good as appreciating how they are.

-(Unknown)

Nothing should be treated more carefully than anything else.

-Thich Nhat Hanh

If there is some thought within the mind, though you listen to the words spoken by another, you will not really be able to hear him. This is because your mind has stoped with your own thoughts.

-Takuan Soho

A monk asked Chao-chou, "Is a newborn child possessed of the six perceptions?" Chao-chou said, "Throw a ball into a swift current." The monk then asked T’ou-tze, "What does it mean, ‘Throw a ball into a swift current?’" T’ou-tze said, "It never stops."

-From "The Blue Cliff Record"

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 any single thought arises, both good and evil are there.

-Takuan Soho

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

Because consciousness discriminates and forms prejudices, it abhors the ugly and adheres to the beautiful, and according to its attachments, the carnal body moves.

-Takuan Soho

If a man advances, making things clear one after the other, he should be able to know all things.

-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

Intently continuing your own efforts, you should not be negligent, not even for a moment.

-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."

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

When you work, do not think of good or bad.

-Chinul

The truth is originally present in everyone. All the Buddha’s and enlightened beings may be called people pointing out this treasure.

Fundamentally, it is not a thing; you don’t need to know or understand it; you don’t need to affirm or deny it.

Just stop dualism; stop suppositions of being and nonbeing, of self and other; of right and wrong.

-Pai-chang

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

I was talking with Joni about a Maku mozo!… Then she explained "how" she reads them. (She gets them in her work computer.) She said she waits until her work is done, takes a deep breath, notices her shoulders relax, then clicks on the email. "We should read every email like that," I said. "We should just do everything like that," she replied.

-bigJoni

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

-Pai-chang

Just be aware, mirrorlike, right now.

-Pai-chang

This work lies in one’s own inner conduct: In everyday life’s varied mix of myriad circumstances, in the dusty hubbub, amidst the ups and downs and conditions – appear and disappear without being turned around by any of it. Instead, you can actively turn it around. Full of life, immune to outside influences, this is your own measure of power.

-Yuan-wu

Master of all mental conditions, the enlightened being’s mind functions in the realm of passing phenomena.

-Pai-chang

If you can perceive calmly, you will penetrate the hidden essence and penetrate all time. As it is said, "When psychology has no influence on perception, the ultimate power remains, serving as a guide in all places."

-Pai-chang

All living beings form habits of action influenced by subjective feelings and affections based on ignorance of the essence of awareness. These habits of action are the causes of specific life patterns, in which the consequences of good and bad are experienced.

Only those states of being consonant with one’s habitual actions are accessible. Since it is in accord with one’s habits, a consonant state of being is considered pleasant, while inaccessible states are considered unpleasant. Consonant states are regarded as one’s own resort, whereas other states are regarded as the resorts of others. Thus there is a false sense of reality, and so there are false causes, and thus false effects. Because there are false effects, there is resorting to them; because of resorting to them, there is a distinction of other from self. Because of distinguishing other from self, there is approval and disapproval.

Now, when you arrive at the true mind, you merge with the essence of awareness, which has no birth or destruction, and activate birthless and indestructible subtle function. The subtle substance is truly eternal, fundamentally without origin or destruction; the subtle function, adapting to conditions, seems to have origination and disappearance, but since the function comes from the substance, the function is itself the substance, and cannot have any origination or destruction. When adepts witness the true substance, of what use are beginnings and endings?

It is like water: Moisture is the substance, waves are the function. There is no origination or destruction in the nature of moisture, so how can the moisture in the waves originate or pass away? Since there can be no waves apart from the nature of moisture, therefore the waves are also unborn and unperishing.

-Chinul

[This will be the last Maku mozo! until March 12.]

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

Tell me, what is this?

A whale drinks up the ocean water,

Exposing the coral branches.

-Hung-chih

What is the use of trying to dig a well when you’re already thristy?

-Kuei-shan

There has never been a beginning;

How could and end be determined?

-Kuei-shan

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

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.

Do you want to know what a Zen master or a buddha is? Simply that which is immediately present, listening to the Teaching.

-Lin-chi

Just do not allow any more interruptions at any time, and everything you see is It. Just because feelings arise, knowledge is blocked; changes in conceptions result in changes in actualities. That is why you keep repeating the same routines in the world and suffer a variety of miseries.

-Lin-chi

In my view, nothing is not extremely profound; nothing is not liberated.

The reality of mind has no form but pervades the ten directions. In the eyes it is called seeing, in the ears it is called hearing, in the nose it smells, in the mouth it speaks, in the hands it grips, and in the feet it steps.

-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.

Make no mistake about it – you have but one father and one mother, so what more are you seeking? Turn your attention back upon yourself and observe.

-Lin-chi

There is no place for exertion of effort in Buddhism; it is just matter of being normal and unobsessed, taking care of bodily functions, dressing and eating, lying down when tried. Fools laugh at me; it is the wise who understand this.

-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

The whole universe, the whole world, is you; do you think there is any other?

-Hsueh-feng

Better not say I’m fooling you today. To begin with, I have no choice but to make a fuss in front of you, but if I were seen by someone with clear eyes, I’d be a laughingstock. Right now I can’t avoid it, so let me ask you all: What has ever been the matter? What do you lack?

-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

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

The first axiom of Zen is to personally accept the the completeness of the present actuality. There is no other in the whole universe; it is all just you. Who else would you have see?

-Hsuan-sha

Why do you not accept what is right at hand? Don’t take a puddle for an ocean.

-Kuei-ch’en

When you are not sitting quietly, you may be distracted without knowing it; but once you are aware of it, distraction itself becomes a mechanism for getting rid of distraction.

-T’ai i chin hua tsung chih

Even if there is something offensive, it still melts away all at once when you notice it.

-T’ai i chin hua tsung chih

If you can look back again and again into the source of mind, whatever you are doing, not sticking to any image of 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

As you go along practicing turning the light around, you need not give up your normal occupation. An ancient said, "When matters come up, one should respond; when things come up, one should discern.

-T’ai i chin hua tsung chih

If you manage affairs with accurate mindfulness, then the light is not overcome by things. So it will do to repeat this formless turning around of the light time and again.

-T’ai i chin hua tsung chih

The essence of the great Way is to act purposefully without striving.

-T’ai i chin hua tsung chih

The learning of sages begins with knowing when to stop and ends with stopping at ultimate good.

-T’ai i chin hua tsung chih

In Buddhism, activating the mind without dwelling on anything is considered the essential message of the whole canon. This is a spiritual pill that gets one out of death and preserves life.

-T’ai i chin hua tsung chih

What is the spiritual pill? It just means to be unminding in all situations. It is enough to understand this. This single statement can save decades of seeking.

-T’ai i chin hua tsung chih

If you are looking for the Way, if you entertain any intellectual view at all, this is immediately a misleading path.

-T’ai i chin hua tsung chih

Forms are all conditioned. Cognition is a function of the mind; empty silence is the substance of mind. If you fix the mind on anything conditioned, then temperament is in control, so you cannot govern it completely or comprehend it thoroughly.

-T’ai i chin hua tsung chih

It is only because the iron pillars of thought are deeply rooted, and it is hard to escape their limitations, that is necessary to observe one’s own mind.

-T’ai i chin hua tsung chih

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

How can you find purity in the mind? It is just a matter of seeking out purity in the midst of impurity. Then when you discover signs of impurity in the midst of purity, you have now found purity.

-T’ai i chin hua tsung chih

The Way is present before our eyes, yet what is before our eyes is hard to understand. People like the unusual and enjoy the new; they miss what is right in front of their eyes and do not know where the Way is. The Way is the immediate presence: if you are unaware of the immediate presence, then your mind races, your intellect runs, and you go on thinking compulsively. All of this is due to shallowness of spiritual power, and shallowness of spiritual power is due to racing in the mind.

-T’ai i chin hua tsung chih

In both Taoism and Buddhism, the term "turning the light around" means turning the primary attention from involvement in mental objects to focus on the essence or source of mind. This exercise is practiced as a means of clearing consciousness and freeing awareness.

-Thomas Cleary (Translator of "The Secret of the Golden Flower")

Good and bad come from your own mind. But what do you call your own mind, apart from your actions and thoughts? Where does your own mind come from?

If you really know where your own mind comes from, boundless obstacles caused by your own actions will be cleared all at once. After that, all sorts of extraordinary possibilities will come to you without you seeking them.

-Ta-hui

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

-Takuan Soho

Thinking and searching by oneself is the teaching of Zen.

-Takuan Soho

Knowledge studies others;

Wisdom is self-known.

-Lao Tzu

Do wholeheartedly what you wish to do and do not do what you are hesitant about.

-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

Do not neglect this… One should be at one with the thing, the place and the time, which are constantly changing, without becoming attached to other thoughts. Waste not a second, penetrate into the innermost question of ‘Who am I originally?’ and have the insight of true self.

-Takuan Soho

Rid of formalized wisdom and learning

People would be a hundredfold happier,

Rid of conventionalized duty and honor

People would find their families dear,

Rid of legalized profiteering

People would have no thieves to fear.

These methods of life have all failed, all three,

Here is the way, it seems to me:

Set people free,

As deep in their hearts they would like to be,

From private greeds

And wanton needs.

-Laotzu

Crying and laughter are variations of the human face and a state of loss of ‘constancy’. Joy and grief come from outside oneself, touch one’s feelings inwardly and then manifest outwardly. For example, when you hear about your child’s death in another place, the sad new comes from there and enters through your ears whereupon it touches your feelings and your face takes on an expression of lamentation. On the other hand when you hear about your child’s good fortune in another place, good news arrives and enters through your ears, it touches your feelings and your face adopts a smile. Neither joy nor grief exist in yourself because they come from outside.

-Takuan Soho

As for actions, a skilled person never uses force. Force is not required when you act by following principle.

When polishing wood, bamboo, and gems and pebbles, if you press down too hard you cannot polish them well. If you polish them with a light mind and less force in your hands they will be polished evenly. When you use force you only add luster to them and their high and low points will remain. If there is a looseness between the scouring brush and the wood or bamboo the higher part of them is rubbed off as sawdust. When you rub harder the space between them becomes too tight and there is no looseness to produce sawdust. The scouring brush is rough enough to rub without force. A light touch of the hand will polish them evenly. This principle applies to everything.

-Takuan Soho

Fail to honor people,

They fail to honor you.

-Lao Tzu

People see a figure when it is born and they say it exists. On the other hand, a body disappears at death and then people say it does not exist. This birth-and-death are the limitation of people’s understanding because either they can see or not see. That is, there are only two, either existence or non-existence. They do not know that there is an infinity before one’s birth and after one’s death.

-Takuan Soho

All sentient beings possess the same mind as the mind of the Whole Universe. The substance of our mind is the same. But an unenlightened man sees one thing as two things because of illusion, and he discriminates between equal things.

-Takuan Soho

A man turns his back on the wide open world and lives in a closed world. A man who does not turn his back on the wide open world finds pleasure, but a man who lives in a closed world finds nothing but suffering.

-Takuan Soho

Good and bad are not within things but within self.

-Takuan Soho

You should not be attached to all things. Turn into yourself and look into yourself thoroughly. There is only yourself between heaven and earth.

-Takuan Soho

In the Great Way knowledge is not highly regarded.

-Takuan Soho

While wisdom is in consciousness it is not true wisdom.

-Takuan Soho

The mind of an ordinary man is always agitated, because he is identified with the ego.

-Takuan Soho

There are two selves — one is true-self and the other is deluded-self. People believe in the deluded mind as if it were the true mind and therefore cannot attain the Way. One must forget the true self, not to mention the deluded mind.

-Takuan Soho

Happiness is not anywhere else, it is here in your mind.

-Takuan Soho

Human consciousness and the objective world unite, sundry thoughts are born, and from these many others are born in turn. Pulled by these thoughts, this body of form is received and produced. It is not simply something strange that has rained down from heaven.

Beginning with the single thought that has no beginning, the multifarious things come to be. When you go and carefully look for its source, being a single thought with no beginning, you find that it has none at all. Having no origin at all, the birth of the infinite variety of things could be called a mystery.

-Takuan Soho

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

The world is seen not as it is, but in its various relationships to the "me" of memory.

-Krishnamurti

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

Is belief necessary to find out? To learn is far more important than to know.

-Krishnamurti

When the mind is free of belief then it can look.

-Krishnamurti

Feeling arises as the result of a challenge, and then it is named. This naming of the feeling re-establishes it in the old pattern. If you do not name it, which means you do not identify yourself with it, then the feeling is new and it will go away by itself. The naming of it strengthens it and gives it a continuity which is the whole process of thought.

-Krishnamurti

The cause of all our conflict is this everlasting duality of desire: the endless corridor of the opposites creating envy, greed, ambition, aggression, fear, and all the rest of it.

-Krishnamurti

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

-Krishnamurti

The past is all our accumulated memories. These memories act in the present and create all our hopes and fears of the future. These hopes and fears are the psychological future: without them there is no future.

-Krishnamurti

The state of seeing is more important than what is seen.

-Krishnamurti

You hear a word, your mind tells you it is an insult, your feelings tell you you don’t like it, your mind again intervenes to control or justify… Once again feeling takes over where the mind has concluded. In this way an event unleashes a chain-reaction of different parts of your being.

-Krishnamurti

What is actually taking place? This is far more important than your question.

-Krishnamurti

Freedom is not an idea, a concept. When there is freedom there is attention, and only in this attention can goodness flower.

-Krishnamurti

In learning there is no accumulation. Knowledge is different from learning. Knowledge is accumulation, conclusions, formulas, but learning is a constant movement, a without a center, without a beginning or end.

-Krishnamurti

Learning all day long has its own extraordinary discipline, which is as gentle as the new spring leaf and as swift as the light.

-Krishnamurti

The way you perceive is what you are.

-Krishnamurti

Doing nothing is far more important than doing something. Can the mind be completely inactive, and thereby be supremely active?

-Krishnamurti

Love is like the perfume of a flower; one or many can smell it: what matters is the perfume, not to whom it belongs.

-Krishnamurti

Intellectual perception is only partial perception, yet perceiving with the intellect seems to satisfy most of us, and we think we understand.

-Krishnamurti

First of all, 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

So our problem is not the integration of the different fragments [of our mind: thinking and feeling] but the understanding of this mind and heart which are one.

-Krishnamurti

Our problem is, why does the mind divide?

The mind is thought. All the activity of thought is separation, fragmentation. Thought is the response of memory, which is the brain. … When the brain is completely awake then the mind becomes quiet. When the brain is completely awake there is no fragmentation, no separation, no duality. The quality of this quietness is of the highest importance. … This quietness is the highest intelligence, which is never personal or impersonal, never yours or mine. Being anonymous, it is whole and immaculate. It defies description for it has no quality. The brain must be completely awake, that is all. As the man in the jungle must keep terribly awake to survive, so the man in the jungle of the world must keep terribly awake to live completely.

-Krishnamurti

What is important is not the work but the waking up to the work. What is important is not the conditioning of the work but to wake up.

-Krishnamurti

[Answering a question about working in an office or factory.]

When the artist is playing beautifully there is no "me": there is love and beauty, and this is art. This is skill in action. Skill in action is the absence of the "me." Art is the absence of the "me." But when you neglect the whole field of life and concentrate only on a little part – however much the "me" may be absent, you are still living unskillfully and therefore are not an artist of life.

-Krishnamurti

[Answering a question: What is an artist?]

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

-Krishnamurti

In your attachment there is pain. You want to be rid of this pain, so you cultivate detachment, which is another form of resistance. In the opposite there is no freedom. That is why it is important to understand that freedom does not lie in detachment. In the process of understanding attachment there is freedom, not in running away from attachment.

-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

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

-Krishnamurti

The past is the cause and the present is the effect, and today, which is the effect of yesterday, becomes the cause of tomorrow. This chain is the way of thought, for thought is the past.

-Krishnamurti

When the mind is silent that silence is a new dimension… This is what matters: to have that energy that dispels the carrying over of the past. The carrying over of the past is a different kind of energy. The silence wipes the other out; the greater absorbs the lesser and remains untouched.

-Krishnamurti

Silence is infinite and the past is limited. The conditioning of the past breaks down in the fullness of silence.

-Krishnamurti

It is so easy to deceive oneself, so easy to convince oneself of anything at all. … What makes illusion? Well, one of the factors is this constant comparison between what is and what should be, this measurement between the good and the bad – thought trying to improve itself, the memory of pleasure, trying to get more pleasure…

-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

Fear is the thought of the unknown… Thought is comparing this with what it thinks is emptiness. This imagination of emptiness is fear, so fear is thought.

-Krishnamurti

The world had a beginning

And this beginning could be the mother of the world.

When you know the mother

Go on to know the child.

After you have known the child

Go back to holding fast to the mother,

And to the end of your days you will not meet with danger.

Block the openings,

Shut the doors,

And all your life you will not run dry.

Unlock the openings,

Add to your troubles,

And to the end of your days you will be beyond salvation.

To see the small is called discernment;

To hold fast to the submissive is called strengh.

Use the light

But give up the discernment.

Bring not misfortune upon yourself.

This is know as following the constant.

Lao Tzu

[Translator’s note: "Openings" and "doors" refer to the senses and the intellect.]

The only thing you can do is see; you cannot cultivate intelligence in order to see. There is only seeing or not seeing.

Questioner: What is it then, to see?

To see means to understand how thought creates the opposites. What thought creates is not real. To see means to understand the nature of thought, memory, conflict, ideas; to see all this as a total process is to understand.

-Krishnamurti

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

-Krishnamurti

So really to live is to learn without the cumulative process.

-Krishnamurti

Questioner: So what is it, to live? What is it to be, and to have that feeling which is complete in itself?

It is living without conflict.

-Krishnamurti

Questioner: How can you can you bring about order in a brain that is disorderly, contradictory, in itself?

It can be done by watchfulness throughout the day, and then, before sleeping, by putting everything that has been done during the day in order. In that way the brain does not go to sleep in disorder.

-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 surest test if a man be sane

Is if he accepts life whole, as it is,

Without needing by measure or touch to understand

The measureless untouchable source

of its images,

The measureless untouchable source

Of its substances,

The source which, while it appears dark emptiness,

Brims with a quick force

Farthest away

And yet nearest at hand

From oldest time unto this day,

Changing its images with origin:

What more need I know of the origin

Than this?

-Lao Tzu

Have little thought of self and as few desires as possible.

-Lao Tzu

As soon as there are names

One ought to know that is time to stop.

Knowing when to stop one can be free from danger.

-Lao Tzu

There is no crime greater than having too many desires;

There is no disaster greater than not being content;

There is no misfortune greater than being covetous.

Hence in being content, one will always have enough.

-Lao Tzu

One who knows does not speak; one who speaks does not know.

-Lao Tzu

To know yet to think that one does not know is best;

Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty.

It is by being alive to difficulty that one can avoid it.

The sage meets with no difficulty.

-Lao Tzu

Don’t despise afflictions, just purify your mind.

-Daikaku

Zen is not conception or perception; if you establish and idea, you turn away from the source.

-Shoitsu

Keep watching whatever you do until this work becomes pure and refined to the point where in one moment you merge and see the original face, the scenery of the original ground.

-Daio

The sphere of perfect communion is clear everywhere,

the pitcher of water is alive, the willow eyes are green,

there are also cold crags and early green bamboo,

why are people these days in such a great hurry?

-Daio

The slightest entanglement of thought is the basis of the most miserable types of behavior; if feelings arise for a moment they lock you up for ten thousand eons.

-Jakushitsu

If you misunderstand your mind you are an ordinary man; if you realize your mind you are sage.

-Jakushitsu

Since it is a way to become detached, the sorrow of the world is quite happy.

-Ikkyu

Thoughts and things are one emptiness.

-Ikkyu

You should understand this body and mind thoroughly.

-Ikkyu

Whatever it is

is nothing but the world of delusion

since even "death" does not turn out

to be a real vacation.

-Ikkyu

When doing meditation work, it should only be a question of what your inner mind is, without keeping such-and-such a thing or such-and-such a principle on your mind.

-Bassui

People see others in terms of themselves. The vision of fools is dreadful.

-Bunan

To acquiesce to the teaching of enlightenment, as it is, directly abandon all things, merge with the body of thusness and experience peerless peace and bliss, is no more than a matter of whether or not you think of the body.

Although there are people who think this teaching is true, it’s hard to find someone who strives to make it his own.

-Bunan

To let the body be free do not cling to anything.

-Bunan

It is necessary only to practice according to reality. According to reality means knowing the fundamental mind as it really is; practice means getting rid of obstructions caused by habitual actions by means of true insight and knowledge.

-Bunan

Take no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

-Jesus

Even written down

they’re just marks made in a dream;

after waking up, there is no one else who asks.

-Ikkyu

If you want to realize your inner mind, first you must see the source of thoughts arising.

-Bassui

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for ye are all one.

-St. Paul

The kingdom of heaven is within you. Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven and all things will be added unto you.

-Jesus

All delusion is routine misunderstanding because of relying on thoughts.

-Bankei

Walking, standing, sitting, reclining, active or silent, whether in favorable or adverse situations, plunge your spirit into the question of what it is that sees and hears everything here and now? What is it that hears?

Questioning like this, pondering like this, ultimately – what thing is it?

-Bankei

This body is a skin bag of habitual obstructions produced by the twelvefold routine of conditioning.

-Torei

All that we can do is see that the mind is conditioned, and, through self-knowledge, understand the process of our own thinking.

-Krishnamurti

I must know myself, not as I would ideologically like to be, but as I actually am, however ugly or beautiful, however jealous, envious, acquisitive.

-Krishnamurti

It is very difficult just to see what one is without wishing to change it, and that very desire to change it is another form of conditioning: and so we go on, moving from conditioning to conditioning, never experiencing something beyond that which is limited.

-Krishnamurti

You do not know what will happen if you see yourself as you are without wishing to bring about a change in that which you see.

-Krishnamurti

Just be aware; that is all you have to do, without condemnation, without forcing, without trying to change what you are aware of.

-Krishnamurti

When we see something as a whole, how can there be a problem? A problem only arises when you see something fragmentarily. Do see the beauty of that.

-Krishnamurti

Truth isn’t a conclusion. A conclusion takes place only when thought produces opinions, dialectical truths. With its conclusion thought then becomes a means of separation.

-Krishnamurti

First, what are you? All your activity is based on the self, on self-centered activity, from morning until night. So, what is the self?

-Krishnamurti

What is most important is what is now, whether you can alter the way you live now.

-Krishnamurti

Can you end your attachment? End all the things like greed, envy, anxiety, loneliness, now. End it, not argue about it, end it and see what happens… If you keep the same things going on continuously, there is nothing new. You understand? Do it, please, in your life, do it. Test it out.

-Krishnamurti

Attention is a state of mind in which there is no contradiction… So to resolve problems is to attend. It’s not a trick!

-Krishnamurti

More than two hundred and fifty questions have been sent in, always somehow not dealing with the facts of oneself. You don’t ask: Why is my mind chattering, so restless?

-Krishnamurti (talking to a large group)

When observing, do not make an abstraction of what is observed into an idea. Please, let’s be very clear on this point. When we observe a tree, the word "tree" is an abstraction, it is not the tree. I hope that is clear. The word, the explanation, the description, is not the actuality, it is not "what is."

-Krishnamurti

Can the brain, mind, ever be free from problems? Please ask this. This is a fundamental question one must ask oneself. But the brain is so trained to solve problems, it cannot understand what it means to be free of problems. Being free it can resolve problems, but not the other way around.

-Krishnamurti

Intelligence is not the clever pursuit of argument, of opposing contradictions, opinions — as though through opinions truth can be found, which is impossible — but it is to realize that the activity of thought, with all its capacities, subtleties and extraordinary ceaseless activity, is not intelligence.

-Krishnamurti

All that we are saying is: Thought is necessary in certain areas, it is not necessary in others. That requires a great deal of observation, attention, care, to find out where thought is not necessary. Right? But we are so impatient, we want to get at it quickly, like taking a pill for a headache. But we never find out what is the cause of the headache.

-Krishnamurti

Without the mental defilements of judgement and comparison, everything is cut off, and you are free and at ease. What need is there to go on distinguishing right and wrong, or discriminating gain and loss? Even so, how many people are capable of this?

-Yuan Wu

Chao Chou, teaching the assembly, said, "The Ultimate Path is without difficulty, just avoid picking and choosing. As soon as there are words spoken, this is "picking and choosing."

[From the Blue Cliff Record]

A monk asked Yun Men, "What are the teachings of a whole lifetime?" Yun Men said, "An appropriate statement."

[From the Blue Cliff Record]

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

-Krishnamurti

Questioner: How can we realize truth in our daily life?

You think that truth is one thing and that your daily life is something else, and in your daily life you want to realize what you call truth. But is truth apart from daily life?

-Krishnamurti

Out of siilence look and listen… Thought itself must be still for silence to be. Silence is always now, as thought is not.

-Krishnamurti

It is useless to be egotistical because every ego is in a relationship of interdependence with the world and all things. So there is no need to keep things for oneself.

-Taisen Deshimaru

The new becomes the old when thought touches it.

-Krishnamurti

It is not the experiences that corrupt the mind but what they leave behind, the residue, the scars, the memories.

-Krishnamurti

The curious part of meditation is that an event is not made into an experience.

-Krishnamurti

The inattentive become entangled in the problems which their inattention breeds.

-Krishnamurti

Not to seek is to find; and the finding is not in the future – it is there, where you do not look.

-Krishnamurti

Routine and habit are our everyday life. Some are aware of their habits, other are not. if one becomes aware of habits – the repetitious movement of the hand or of the mind – one can put an end to them with comparative ease.

-Krishnamurti

The fear of change strengthens habit, not only physically but in the very brain cells themselves. So having once become established in a routine, we keep going like a tramcar along its rails. We take things for granted in all relationships, and this is one of the major factors in insensitivity. So habit becomes a natural thing.

-Krishnamurti

What matters most is to always remain beyond categories, otherwise one becomes narrow, narrower and narrower.

-Taisen Deshimaru

If our minds have no limits they can resolve all contradictions.

-Taisen Deshimaru

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

Above all, do not create distinctions with your personal consciousness because if you do you will always be half-wrong.

-Taisen Deshimaru

Time cannot come back. We can come back to here but we can never come back to now.

-Taisen Deshimaru

If mind has something to value, it will surely have something to despise.

-Bodhidharma

If there are places that you understand, then your mind has something to be connected to.

-Bodhidharma

Realize that whatever mind discriminates is merely forms. If you awaken to the fact that mind from the outset has been void-quiescent and know that mind is not itself a form, then mind is unconnected. Forms are not forms. They are constructed in the manner of an illusion by your own mind. If you merely realize that they are not real, then you will attain liberation.

-Bodhidharma

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

If the doors of

perception were

cleared, everything

would appear to

man as it is,

infinite.

-William Blake

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

-Krishnamurti

You learn when you know nothing.

-Krishnamurti

Go slowly; listen quietly. Please inquire into the state of mind that says: ‘I do not know.’

Questioner: It is quiet; it is open.

No, no! Don’t make statements. Just look.

-Krishnamurti

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

-Krishnamurti

Freedom is to stand alone, unattached and unafraid, free in the understanding of desire that breeds illusion. There is a vast strength in being alone. It is the conditioned, programmed brain that is never alone, for it is filled with knowledge. This limitation is the major factor of conflict.

-Krishnamurti

Questioner: "What is the reason why the brain, or thought, as you say, forms images?"

Is it for security? To be safe from all danger? To be certain, to avoid confusion? Whatever small part of the brain is functioning, to function well, efficiently, it must feel certain, safe. Whether that certainty, security, is an illusion or some invention of thought, such as faith or belief, is actually of no importance as long as that limited part of the brain feels safe, assured, certain. In this illusion we live.

-Krishnamurti

Every experience is conditioned by the past experience. So there is no new experience, it is always colored by the past. Therefore experience is not a factor in liberation. I do not know if you have thought about this at all.

-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

The mind that does not compare at all is a totally different kind of mind; it has much more vitality.

-Krishnamurti

We are slaves to words, slaves to ideas, images and symbols. To come into touch with something directly the word must not interfere. So one has to learn the art of seeing and listening.

All that you have to do is to look. It is not a matter of how to look – just look, with all your heart, with your mind, so that you see things actually as they are.

-Krishnamurti

All that thought really knows is yesterday. So thought is of yesterday, thought is old, never new.

-Krishnamurti

Do not pursue what should be, but understand what is.

-Krishnamurti

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

-Krishnamurti

Chi Tsung asked, "What is the principle behind it all?"

The Master replied, "Do you understand the outcome of (discriminative) reasoning? When one makes false calculation by accepting the recognition of oneself as a being, there occurs a dichotomy of active and passive that may be called delusion. Those who follow this (discriminative) view will fall into the world of birth and death, and become limited by time and space. Those who see things clearly do not follow this (discriminative) view. Although they see things all day long, they see nothing. In seeking for things they have seen that the essence and form of them are unobtainable, and both subject and object are cut off. This is called seeing-nature."

Chi Tsung asked, "Is the nature all-pervasive, or not?"

The Master answered, "There is no place where the nature is not overwhelming."

Chi Tsung asked, "Do common people have it?"

The Master answered, "I have already said there is no place where it is not overwhelming. Whey shouldn’t common people be gifted with it?"

Chi Tsung said, "But Buddhas and bodhisattvas are not under the bondage of birth and death, while common people are bound up by this pain. How can it be present everywhere?"

The Master said, "Within the pure, clean nature common people (discriminate and) make the dichotomy of subject and object – that is to say, they fall it the limitation of birth and death. Buddhas and masters know well that the clean, pure nature is not connected with the duality of being and non-being, and they do not set up subject and object."

The Master continued, "Although there is no agitation within the clean and pure nature, it is pregnant with the application of skillful means of raising benevolence. This delivering, merciful virtue is the essence of the clean and pure nature."

-Chih

When there is a choice, there is confusion. Only when you are confused, you begin to choose. Only when you are clear, there is no choice.

-Krishanmurti

An examination of the fragments doesn’t bring about a comprehension of the whole. Right?

-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

Please follow this. The brain will create any conclusion because that gives it security. It may be a rational or irrational conclusion, an idiotic belief or a rational observation. The brain will cling to these because they offer a complete sense of security.

-Krishnamurti

It is only when the mind is quiet, still, that you can hear properly. There are different kinds of silence: the silence between two noises, the silence between two thoughts, the silence after a long battle with oneself, the silence between two wars, which you call peace. All those silences are the product of noise. That is not silence. There is a silence which is not produced or cultivated, so that there is no "me" to observe that silence, but only silence, quietness.

-Krishnamurti

You can see everything within yourself.

-Ch’ung Hui

The object of bowing is to break the curtain of self-intoxication.

So why not put your head as low as the ground.

Cherishing pride is committing a crime,

While forgetting your merit brings joy beyond measure.

-Hui Neng

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

If only in one flash you realize your fault (of identification)

Your own spiritual light will forever shine forth.

-Hui Neng

All dharmas are born of mind;

mind is not born of anything.

Dharmas cannot dwell on anything.

When you reach the mind-ground

you are not obstructed in your behavior.

Be mindful of your use of words.

-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

Questioner: In the present social system is it not very difficult to put into practice what you are talking about?

When you feel very strongly about something, do you consider it difficult to put into practice? It is only when you don’t vitally feel the truth of something that you say that it is difficult to put into action. You don’t love it.

-Krishnamurti

To seek out reality we must know how to go about removing the dust of centuries that has settled upon it; and please believe me, that search for reality is true education.

-Krishnamurti

[That sentence had extra impact on me because it is the only time I can remember Krishnamurti asking anyone to "believe him."]

It has been the same in all times, ancient and modern; things are natural as they are. How else could they be? However they are, they are. This is the great matter, and this is a thing that is beyond a man to deal with.

-Tzu Man

It is the thoughtlife that pollutes. If your eye is pure, there will be sunshine in your soul.

-Jesus

A monk asked, "What is the doctrine of the abrupt teaching the Mahayana?

The Master said, "You must, first of all, stop all your concern about everything and have a rest. Don’t remember anything: good or non-good, worldly or non-wordly. Don’t cherish any idea, but throw away both your body and mind and let them be free.

-Huai Hai

To understand something you cannot compare it with something else.

-Krishnamurti

Understanding does not come through comparison, it comes only when you examine the thing itself.

-Krishnamurti