“Mindful of the passing of time, engage yourself in zazen as though saving your head from fire.”
Source: The Essential Dogen: Writings of the Great Zen Master
“Zazen is not learning to do concentration. It is the dharma gate of great ease and joy. It is undivided practice-realization.”
Source: The Essential Dogen: Writings of the Great Zen Master
“[Question:] Should zazen be practiced by laymen and lay-women, or should it be practiced by home leavers alone?
[Dogen's answer:] The ancestors say, "In understanding buddha dharma, men and women, noble and common people are not distinguished.”
Source: The Essential Dogen: Writings of the Great Zen Master
“When we have difficulties, we might start to practice zazen to find a way out. Some people seek worldly success with meditation, using it as training in concentration, spontaneity, or bravery. Others aspire to be released from everyday life by some kind of enlightenment experience. Either way, we search because we feel a lack.
When we practice zazen with this attitude, what happens in our minds is the same as when we struggle for fame and profit. As long as we practice zazen with seeking mind, we create samsara within our practice.”
Source: The Zen Teaching of Homeless Kodo
“Zazen should not be defiled by our desires—even the desire for enlightenment or becoming a buddha.”
Source: The Zen Teaching of Homeless Kodo
“Even if we don't become an expert—always prepared, refined, and elegant like a veteran swordsman, virtuoso Noh actor, or tea master—we're fine, aren't we? What's wrong with toddling and limping along the path of life practicing zazen?”
Source: The Zen Teaching of Homeless Kodo
“Because I practiced good-for-nothing zazen with devotion, I felt my life was justified. Yet this intensity of practice was possible only when I was young, strong, and healthy. In this way I discovered arrogance in a deep layer of my mind.”
Source: The Zen Teaching of Homeless Kodo
“Just sitting, which is good for nothing, is the ultimate posture of freedom from greed.”
Source: The Zen Teaching of Homeless Kodo
“Thirty minutes of sharp, alert sitting is far more beneficial than an hour of sleepy, dull zazen.”
Source: Zen: The Authentic Gate
“Many people wonder about the optimal length for a period of zazen. Sitting a short period of time is by no means less effective than a longer period. Zazen has worth and merit in itself, no matter how long one sits. Sitting from morning to night is not necessarily the best meditation. If you sit for a short period of time, you receive benefit from that sitting, and if you sit for a long period of time, you also benefit.”
Source: Zen: The Authentic Gate