zazen perfects the human being

this is zazen

 

Scholar’s studies

can become an obstacle,

making the mind difficult to control.

The effect of zazen is to let your mind and

body really listen to you. Quiet sitting is good.

Zazen can reasonably be taken as far

as one chooses—one can advance

by the light discovered

within it.

 

There’s no deception

in it. It’s a natural need in a human

being’s life.It’s the call by the Universe

to a human being’s true nature.

Zazen perfects the

human being.

 

The mission of humans is

to cease producing the waves of thought that

have occurred up until now as a result of egotism.

When that is done, a human being is

born for the first time.

 

Katō Kōzan

everyone is originally pure, not different from the buddha

 

be free of all worldly affairs

stop your search

 

Do not look for a chance to go out.

But if necessary, going out is permitted once a month.

People in the past lived in the remote mountains and practiced

far away in the forests. Not only were they free of all worldly affairs,

but they abandoned all relationships. You should learn the heart of their

covering brilliance and obscuring traces. Now is the time for the fire

on your head to be wiped out. Is it not sad if you waste this time,

concerning yourself with secular affairs? The impermanent

is unreliable. Nobody knows where or when this

dew-like existence will drop into the grass.

Not recognizing impermanence is

truly regrettable.

 

Dogen

 

enlightenment is not a disappearance


 

Enlightenment

is not an asexual, dispassionate,

head-in-the-clouds, nails-in-the-palms

disappearance from the game of life. It’s a

volcanic, kick-ass, erotic commitment

to love in action, coupled with

hard-headed practical

grist.

 

Elissa Giles

 
 

QUESTION.

Everyone has a secret agenda.

What’s yours?

 
ANSWER.

To show what a moral vision

would look like if it were rooted in the quest

for beauty, truth, love, pleasure, and liberation

instead of order, control, politeness,

fear, and self-denial.

 

Rob Brezsny