“Using only the tools of the physical world to find answers to our questions about life is like trying to unlock a door using a banana instead of a key or like using an equation to understand love or sympathy or a thought about Tao.”
Source: That Was Zen, This Is Tao: Living Your Way to Enlightenment, Illustrated Edition
“I believe that neutrinos impart maintenance of life and healing to us and that they supply energy to us, to our planet, and to everything else in our Taoverse.”
Source: That Was Zen, This Is Tao: Living Your Way to Enlightenment, Illustrated Edition
“After you have practiced for a while, you will realize that it is not possible to make rapid, extraordinary progress. Even though you try very hard, the progress you make is always little by little. It is not like going out in a shower in which you know when you get wet. In a fog, you do not know you are getting wet, but as you keep walking you get wet little by little.”
Source: Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice
“Once the arrow has left the bowstring, it has no power to come back. The moon's brightness shines, revealing the night traveller.”
Source: The Blue Cliff Record
“We never really get away with anything.”
Source: A Still Forest Pool: The Insight Meditation of Achaan Chah
“The first and foremost aim of Zen, consequently, is to break the net of our concepts -which is why it has been termed by some a philosophy of "no mind." A number of schools of Occidental psychological therapy hold that what we all most need an are seeking is a meaning for our lives. For some, this may be a help; but all it helps is the intellect, and when the intellect sets to work on life with its names and categories, recongnitions of relationship and definitions of meaning, what is inwardmost is readily lost. Zen, on the contrary, holds the realization that life and the sense of life are antecent to meaning; the idea being to let life come and not name it. It will then push you right back to where you live- where you are, and not where you named.”
Source: Myths to Live By
“Make the practice pleasant, that is what I beg you to do.”
Source: The Ultimate Dimension : An Advanced Dharma Retreat on the Avatamsaka and Lotus Sutras
“You cannot remain yourself.”
Source: Touching Peace: Practicing the Art of Mindful Living
“What we call “I” is just a swinging door which moves when we inhale and when we exhale. It just moves; that is all. When your mind is pure and calm enough to follow this movement, there is nothing: no “I,” no world, no mind nor body; just a swinging door.”
Source: Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice
“Words are treacherous.”
Source: Zen Light