Forget your figuring.
Forget yourself. Listen to your Friend.
When you become totally obedient
to that one, you’ll
be free.
this very life itself is the buddha dharma
This
reminds me of
another statement Dogen Zenji
made when he returned from China,
‘I have returned empty-handed, without the
smallest bit of Buddha Dharma.’ ‘Empty-handed.’
When you’ve got nothing in your hands, they are free
to be used in the best way. And, ‘without the smallest
bit of Buddha Dharma.’ In other words, everything
is the Buddha Dharma. It’s not a matter of
having it or not. This very life, as it is,
is nothing but the Buddha
Dharma itself.
take the world into your arms
When it’s over,
I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder if I have made of my
life something particular, and real. I don’t want to find
myself sighing and frightened, or full of argument.
I don’t want to end up simply
having visited this
world.
rope a dope
Confusion
can camouflage
a powerful intent. Timidity
can conceal iron will.
Fragility can mask
might.
Thus
the superior warrior
lures and deceives, falls back
and then surges, drawing the opponent
this way and that into the path of his
strikes. His emphasis is not on the
effect of one movement, but
rather the weight of his
combinations.
He
uses his soldiers
like a multitude of arrows
and stones, sometimes keeping
them still, sometimes releasing them
in a terrible storm, like boulders
hurtling down a steep mountain.
This is the way to shape
energy in war.
from The Art of War, Chapter V
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just breathe
If you
are trying to attain
enlightenment, you are creating
and being driven by karma, and you are
wasting your time on your black cushion.
The most important things in our practice are
our physical posture and our way of breathing.
We are not so concerned about a deep understanding
of Buddhism. As a philosophy, Buddhism is a very deep,
wide, and firm system of thought, but zen is not concerned
about philosophical understanding. We emphasize practice.
We should understand why our physical posture and
breathing exercise are so important. Instead of
having a deep understanding of the teaching,
we need a strong confidence in our teaching,
which says that originally we have
Buddha nature. Our practice
is based on this
faith.
Hexagram 55: FÊNG /
ABUNDANCE
In
the search
for enlightenment,
there is an ever-present
certainty that there is more to do,
someone else who holds the
secret, another state to
attain.
In the
finding of it,
there is the comical
revelation that not one
of those things was
ever true.
小畜
Hexagram 9: HSIAO CH’U /
THE TAMING POWER OF THE SMALL
The
best effort
one can make is the
gentlest effort: wei wu wei.
Quietly, persistently direct the
mind toward emptiness. When
all thoughts and ideas have
dissipated, then make no
further effort. Just
breathe.
This
is the only
practice required of a
human, the best one, the one
that perfectly purifies
our lives.
You
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Wei wu Wei Ching as part of a
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