Dogen
A flower falls, even though we love it; and a weed grows, even though we do not love it.Collection: Gardening
Working with plants, trees, fences and walls, if they practice sincerely they will attain enlightenment.Collection: Gardening
Do not follow the ideas of others, but learn to listen to the voice within yourself. Your body and mind will become clear and you will realize the unity of all things.
Do not think you will necessarily be aware of your own enlightenment.
The color of the mountains is Buddha's body; the sound of running water is his great speech.
If you cannot find the truth within yourself, where else do you expect to find it?
When we discover that the truth is already in us, we are all at once our original selves.
You should study not only that you become a mother when your child is born, but also that you become a child.
If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?Collection: Spiritual
If you want to see things just as they are, then you yourself must practice just as you are.Collection: Practice
Meditation is not a way to enlightenment, Nor is it a method of achieving anything at all. It is peace itself. It is the actualization of wisdom, The ultimate truth of the oneness of all things.Collection: Oneness
To be in harmony with the wholeness of things is not to have anxiety over imperfections.Collection: Imperfection
Enlightenment is intimacy with all things.Collection: Buddhist
When both body and mind are at peace, all things appear as they are: perfect, complete, lacking nothing.Collection: Perfect
Life and death are of supreme importance. Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost. Each of us should strive to awaken. Awaken. Take heed, do not squander your life.Collection: Life
Life and death are nothing but the mind. Years, months, days, and hours are nothing but the mind. Dreams, illusions, and mirages are nothing but the mind. The bubbles of water and the flames of fire are nothing but the mind. The flowers of the spring and the moon of the autumn are nothing but the mind. Confusions and dangers are nothing but the mind.Collection: Dream
But do not ask me where I am going, As I travel in this limitless world, Where every step I take is my home.Collection: Travel
A fool sees himself as another, but a wise man sees others as himself.Collection: Wise
To study the Way is to study the Self. To study the Self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things of the universe. To be enlightened by all things of the universe is to cast off the body and mind of the self as well as those of others. Even the traces of enlightenment are wiped out, and life with traceless enlightenment goes on forever and everCollection: Self
The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in one dewdrop on the grass.Collection: Moon
To start from the self and try to understand all things is delusion. To let the self be awakened by all things is enlightenment.Collection: Spiritual
We must always be disturbed by the truth.Collection: Disturbed
Truth is not far away. It is nearer than near. There is no need to attain it, since not one of your steps leads away from it.Collection: Needs
Those who seek the easy way do not seek the true way.Collection: Way
Studying the Buddha way is studying oneself. Studying oneself is forgetting oneself. Forgetting oneself is being enlightened by all things. Being enlightened by all things is to shed the body-mind of oneself, and those of others. No trace of enlightenment remains, and this traceless enlightenment continues endlessly.Collection: Self
In the mundane, nothing is sacred. In sacredness, nothing is mundane.Collection: Sacred
One must be deeply aware of the impermanence of the world.Collection: World
That the self advances and confirms the ten thousand things is called delusion; that the ten thousand things advance and confirm the self is called enlightenment.Collection: Self
Practice and enlightenment are not two.Collection: Practice
Continuous practice, day after day, is the most appropriate way of expressing gratitude. This means that you practice continuously, without wasting a single day of your life, without using it for your own sake. Why is it so? Your life is a fortunate outcome of the continuous practice of the past. You should express your gratitude immediately.Collection: Gratitude
The zazen I speak of is not learning meditation. It is simply the Dharma gate of repose and bliss, the practice-realization of totally culminated enlightenment. It is the manifestation of ultimate reality. Traps and snares can never reach it. Once its heart is grasped, you are like the dragon when he gains the water, like the tiger when she enters the mountain. For you must know that just there (in zazen) the right Dharma is manifesting itself and that, from the first, dullness and distraction are struck aside.Collection: Heart
When you paint Spring, do not paint willows, plums, peaches, or apricots, but just paint Spring. To paint willows, plums, peaches, or apricots is to paint willows, plums, peaches, or apricots - it is not yet painting Spring.Collection: Spring
In the assemblies of the enlightened ones there have been many cases of mastering the Way bringing forth the heart of plants and trees; this is what awakening the mind for enlightenment is like. The fifth patriarch of Zen was once a pine-planting wayfarer; Rinzai worked on planting cedars and pines on Mount Obaku. . . . Working with plants, trees, fences and walls, if they practice sincerely they will attain enlightenment.Collection: Wall
Every man possesses the Buddha-nature. Do not demean yourselves.Collection: Men
Because monks come from the midst of purity, they consider as good and pure what does not arouse desire among other people.Collection: People
Inside the treasury of the dharma eye a single grain of dust.Collection: Eye
Just study Buddhism. Don't follow the sentiments of the world.Collection: Buddhism
Do not view mountains from the scale of human thought.Collection: Views
Know that the true dharma emerges of itself [during the practice of zazen], clearing away hindrances and distractions.Collection: Practice
When a buddha is painted, not only a clay altar or lump of earth is used, but the thirty-two marks, a blade of grass, and the cultivation of wisdom for incalculable eons are used. As a Buddha has been painted on a single scroll in this way, all buddhas are painted buddhas, and all painted buddhas are actual buddhas.Collection: Two
All that's visible springs from causes intimate to you. While walking, sitting, lying down, the body itself is complete truth. If someone asks the inner meaning of this: Inside the treasury of dharma eye a single grain of dust.Collection: Lying
Zazen is the ultimate practice. This is indeed the True Self. The Buddhadharma is not to be sought outside of this.Collection: Self
In autumn even though I may see it again, how can I sleep with the moon this evening?Collection: Sleep
Because mountains are high and broad, the way of riding the clouds is always reached in the mountains; the inconceivable power of soaring in the wind comes freely from the mountainsCollection: Clouds
Students of the Way must not study Buddhism for the sake of themselves. They must study Buddhism only for the sake of Buddhism. The key to this is to renounce both body and mind without holding anything back and to offer them to the great sea of Buddhism.Collection: Buddhism
Cease from practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words, and following after speech.Collection: Practice
Do not travel to other dusty lands, forsaking your own sitting place; if you cannot find the truth where you are now, you will never find it.Collection: Land
Something you want badly enough can always be gained. No matter how fierce the enemy, how remote the beautiful lady, or how carefully guarded the treasure, there is always a means to the goal for the earnest seeker. The unseen help of the guardian gods of heaven and earth assure fulfillment.Collection: Beautiful
I haven't got any Buddhism. I live by letting things happen.Collection: Buddhism
Do no harmful actions, do not become attached to the cycle of death and rebirth, show kindness, respect the old and have compassion for the young, do not have a heart that rejects or a heart that covets and have no worry or sadness in your heart. This is what is called enlightenment. Do not seek it elsewhere.Collection: Kindness