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Quote by Dōgen

“[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.”

Quote by Dōgen

Book:The Essential Dogen: Writings of the Great Zen Master

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The Essential Dogen: Writings of the Great Zen Master

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“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.”

Zazen Seeking Mind

Book:The Zen Teaching of Homeless Kodo

Source: The Zen Teaching of Homeless Kodo

“Zazen should not be defiled by our desires—even the desire for enlightenment or becoming a buddha.”

Book:The Zen Teaching of Homeless Kodo

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?”

Book:The Zen Teaching of Homeless Kodo

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.”

Arrogance Zazen

Book:The Zen Teaching of Homeless Kodo

Source: The Zen Teaching of Homeless Kodo

“Just sitting, which is good for nothing, is the ultimate posture of freedom from greed.”

Zazen Just Sitting

Book:The Zen Teaching of Homeless Kodo

Source: The Zen Teaching of Homeless Kodo

“Thirty minutes of sharp, alert sitting is far more beneficial than an hour of sleepy, dull zazen.”

Book:Zen: The Authentic Gate

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.”

Book:Zen: The Authentic Gate

Source: Zen: The Authentic Gate

“Apathy isn't a private solution for a public problem It's a coping mechanism”

Problem Spirituality Consciousness Psychology Enlightenment Apathy Knowledge Of Self Self Actualization Solution Generative Principle Of Care

Author:Henry Joseph-Grant

“Beginners who sit on their own should start with periods of five minutes and gradually work up to about twenty-five or thirty minutes for a single sitting.”

Book:Zen: The Authentic Gate

Source: Zen: The Authentic Gate

“The ideal number of sitting periods in a day will depend on individual aspiration and circumstances. If we decide that one of our periods of sitting will be thirty minutes, then sitting four periods of zazen in a day would already amount to two hours. At the very least, everyone should be able to make time for one period each day, and most people should be able to sit at least two, for a total of an hour a day. People with high aspirations should be able to sit three or four periods a day, although maintaining such a schedule every day is hardly easy.”

Book:Zen: The Authentic Gate

Source: Zen: The Authentic Gate