papaji

 
At all times just remain free and uninvolved. Never make any displays of clever tricks — be like a stolid simpleton in a village of three families. Then the gods will have no road on which to offer you flowers, and demons and outsiders will not be able to spy on you.

Be undefinable, and do not reveal any conspicuous signs of your special attainment. It should be as if you are there among myriad precious goods locked up securely and deeply hidden in a treasure house. With your face smeared with mud and ashes, join in the work of the common laborers, neither speaking out nor thinking.

Live your whole life so that no one can figure you out, while your spirit and mind are at peace. Isn’t this what it is to be imbued with the Way without any contrived or forced actions, a genuinely unconcerned person?

Among the enlightened adepts, being able to speak the Truth has nothing to do with the tongue, and being able to talk about the Dharma is not a matter of words.
 

Yuanwu

 
 

 

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.

 

Taizan Maezumi Roshi

 

 

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.

 

Mary Oliver

 

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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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.

 

Shunryu Suzuki

 

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.

 

Wei wu Wei Ching

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