
How boring to
sit idly on the floor, not meditating,
not breaking through. Look at the horses
racing along the Kamo River!
That’s zazen!

How boring to
sit idly on the floor, not meditating,
not breaking through. Look at the horses
racing along the Kamo River!
That’s 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.
everyone is originally pure, not different from the buddha

The universe
and I are of the same root.
The myriad things and I are
one body. That is
zazen.
Kodo Sawaki Roshi

When we become
truly ourselves, we just become
a swinging door, and we are purely independent
of, and at the same time, dependent upon everything.
Without air, we cannot breathe. Each one of us is
in the midst of myriads of worlds. We are in
the center of the world always,
moment after moment.

Concentration is not
to try hard to watch something.
In zazen, if you try to look at one spot,
you will be tired in about five minutes. This is
not concentration. Concentration means freedom.
So, your effort should be directed at nothing. You should
be concentrated on nothing. In zazen practice we say that
your mind should be concentrated on your breathing,
but the way to keep your mind concentrated
on your breathing is to forget all about
yourself and just to sit and feel
your breathing.
…If you
continue this practice,
eventually you will experience the
true existence which comes
from emptiness.