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Quote by Kōun Yamada

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Zen: The Authentic Gate

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Kōun Yamada

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“Although the Sino-Japanese character kū means “empty” or “void,” emptiness in Zen is neither nihilistic nor a vacuum; it doesn’t mean that there is nothing at all. Even expressions such as “All things are impermanent and empty” or “From the beginning there is not one thing” do not mean that things are completely empty. If I were pressed to say something about emptiness, I would say that it doesn’t depend on our five senses, it transcends them. If this weren’t so, the words “Form is none other than emptiness” couldn’t be reversed to read, “Emptiness is none other than form.”

ZenEmptiness
Book:Zen: The Authentic Gate
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“Zen people don't bother about logic; they live the ultimate paradox. They go on saying there is no teaching and truth cannot be taught, and still Zen Masters are there and Zen disciples are there. And people have raised questions, skeptical people have always raised questions that: "What is this? On the one hand you say truth cannot be taught, and on the other hand why you initiate, why you accept people?" And the Zen Masters have always laughed, because this paradox cannot be explained. If you want to know it really you have to become a disciple, you have to become a participant, you have to become part of the mystery; only then you will have the taste of it. It is a taste; no explanation can help.”

LogicZenParadoxZen BuddhismEastern Philosophy
Book:I am that
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“The nonthinking taught by Zen practice entails stilling the conscious activities of the ego in order to prepare for the experience. This Zen exercise reduces the ego to silence and clears space for what is essential. What thereby occurs is anything but the cult of the ego, narcissism, or egocentrism. Rather, the ego is compelled to make room for an experience that establishes communication with the reality of all existing things.”

ZenNonthinking
Book:Zen Enlightenment: Origins And Meaning
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“There has been a tendency to find Zen so radically different from other Buddhist schools, especially during the Zen boom in America, that a distinction was drawn between Zen and Buddhism in general. It goes without saying that this sort of distinction is nonsense. Zen in its entirety belongs to Chinese Mahayana Buddhism. It counts as one of the classical Buddhist schools in China, each of which can claim a certain autonomy. Zen itself professes to be that particular lineage of immediate transmission which, bound to no holy scriptures, hands down to progeny the original way to Buddha-enlightenment. It is, in brief, the meditation school of Mahayana Buddhism.”

ZenMahayana Buddhism
Book:Zen Enlightenment: Origins And Meaning
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