Calmness
in quietude is not
real calm; when you can be calm
in the midst of activity, this is the true
state of nature. Happiness in comfort is
not real happiness; when you can be
happy in the midst of hardship,
then you see the true
potential of the
mind.
Forget your figuring.
Forget yourself. Listen to your Friend.
When you become totally obedient
to that one, you’ll
be free.
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.
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.
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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