Hakuin Ekaku

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What is this true meditation? It is to make everything: coughing, swallowing, waving the arms, motion, stillness, words, action, the evil and the good, prosperity and shame, gain and loss, right and wrong, into one single koan.
- Hakuin Ekaku
Collection: Loss
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Meditation in the midst of activity is a thousand times superior to meditation in stillness.
- Hakuin Ekaku
Collection: Meditation
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If you forget yourself, you become the universe.
- Hakuin Ekaku
Collection: Forget
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Not knowing how near the truth is, we seek it far away.
- Hakuin Ekaku
Collection: Meaningful
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At the bottom of great doubt lies great awakening. If you doubt fully, you will awaken fully.
- Hakuin Ekaku
Collection: Lying
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All beings are by nature are Buddhas, as ice by nature is water. Apart from water there is no ice; apart from beings, no Buddhas.
- Hakuin Ekaku
Collection: Honesty
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From the sea of effortlessness, let your great uncaused compassion shine forth.
- Hakuin Ekaku
Collection: Compassion
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At this moment, is there anything lacking? Nirvana is right here now before our eyes. This place is the lotus land. This body now is the Buddha.
- Hakuin Ekaku
Collection: Spiritual
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Meditation in action is endlessly more important than meditation in stillness.
- Hakuin Ekaku
Collection: Meditation
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Once a person is able to achieve true singlemindedness in his practice and smash apart the old nest... into which he has settled... Wisdom immediately appears... and the all-discerning Fivefold Eye opens wide.
- Hakuin Ekaku
Collection: Eye
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You know the sound of two hands clapping; tell me, what is the sound of one hand?
- Hakuin Ekaku
Collection: Hands
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The spirit of meditation is the combating of self-willed thinking-it is a combat against the weight of one's feelings.
- Hakuin Ekaku
Collection: Thinking
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Should you desire the great tranquility prepare to sweat white beads.
- Hakuin Ekaku
Collection: Art
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I encourage all you superior seekers in the secret depths to devote yourselves to penetrating and clarifying the self, as earnestly as you would put out a fire on the top of your head.
- Hakuin Ekaku
Collection: Fire
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Nirvana is right here, before our eyes.
- Hakuin Ekaku
Collection: Eye
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Contemplation within activity is a million times better than contemplation within stillness.
- Hakuin Ekaku
Collection: Contemplation
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Underlying great doubt there is great satori, where there is thorough questioning there will be thoroughgoing experience of awakening.
- Hakuin Ekaku
Collection: Doubt
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In singing and dancing is the voice of the Law.
- Hakuin Ekaku
Collection: Law
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How bright and transparent the moonlight of wisdom.
- Hakuin Ekaku
Collection: Wisdom
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What is the sound of one hand?
- Hakuin Ekaku
Collection: Hands