Maitreya is the Buddha of the future. Maitreya won’t come to pass unless the light transmits. Transmitting the light also involves letting go of it, as Tetto Giko realizes through his impression of Mahakasyapa who was clinging to Buddha’s robe which was a metaphor for the True Dharma Eye.
– case 213, Tetto’s Admonations
Quantum Mechanics.
– case 214, The Infinite Realms
If you’re feeling frustrated, treat yourself with a poem.
To save and to let die are equally important. Why do we suddenly hate that?
Could you imagine sitting up on a tree branch telling a governor that they’re as impulsive as a three-year-old? The priest Niaoke Daolin is hilarious.
– case 215, Letian Asks about the Dharma
‘No drama.’ – Fubei to Lingxing
– case 216, Fubei Answers a Woman
Buddhism, meditation, and zen practice is an experience. Whatever platitudes you hear about them takes you further from what they are.
People find inspiration in a creator and wish to create as well. They who create themselves from the inside attract those who wish to create as well.
Need emptiness be form?
What makes it so?
– case 217, Form is Emptiness
Silence that surrounds words strengthens those words. Unless you’re open to negotiation don’t use too many words.
Whatever you do in your life, I hope you’re compelled to the good fight.
Disasters always come. You’re going to suffer a disaster.
A real disaster wrecks you and you aren’t going to be prepared for it and that’s what makes it a disaster.
Everybody gets wrecked but not everybody endures. Endure and rebuild, that’s how gods are created.
Are you here now?
Welcome.
In the end, whatever you’ve lost will pale in comparison to the strength you’ve gained. You’ll’ve traded all those encumbrances for that which words can’t capture. What a fine deal, a good bargain.
– on disasters
The thing about the original nonbeing (Zen state?)is that if you pursue it, it escapes you.
As it finds you a good conduit so more it flows through you. After some time you can see those who would be good conduits too.
– Transmission of Light
The crux of the problem is always in your soul.
You should view this world the same way you view a tidepool. Take interest, that’s it.
– a case for being dispassionate
Sometimes your experiences in life will fit into a situation as a key fits into a lock. It takes courage to put it in and turn it.
Unless you practice overcoming your desires, you’re not really improving spiritually.
Zen deals in philosophical honesty only. Anything else would be something else.
– case 19, Zhaozhou’s ‘Talk around the Fireside’
In Ki No Tsurayuki’s famous poem ‘Approaching Midnight,’ even in his deepest dreams he’s still fully present.
When carrying great burdens you needn’t do anything spectacular to free yourself of them, no grand gestures or affirmations required.
Let your muscles relax and let gravity do the work. You only need to let go.
– on letting go
I look back in time with a flashlight I didn’t possess when I was moving the other direction. Now I can see with cast and dancing shadow that which I tripped over. I see the obstacles that caused me to stumble. I see my hard laboured paths and my shortcuts. I see the pitfalls and golden treasures of love. If there is any measurement of humankind, it’s that of reflection.
Other than what you like and what you don’t like, what are you?
Heart disease doesn’t kill people so much as their denial of it does.
Linji is easily the most hilarious character in all of the Zen koans.
– case 218, Linji Asks for Alms
‘You’re doing it wrong,’ he told the artist who had just then invented an entirely new form of art.
I bet, for a train, there’s no better feeling than being full speed on the tracks.
It’s a tool, not a god. They who take direction from a tool become subject to it. That’s a pretty major demotion for a human.
Build it out from the inside out. Anything else is a shell. It’s worse than useless, it’s dangerous.
Bodhi Dharma came from the west. A force from the unknown. Insight came upon a blazing trail.
It’s all about transference of energy. I can’t believe that’s not a commandment.
Woah! ‘Transference’ has three e’s in a row? I haven’t seen a sequence of e’s like that since ‘independence’.
Stop mid motion to summon the ghosts in the room.
Through true struggle first you defy your nature and later define it.
Under the earth is a rock that no one’s ever seen but it holds up everything they’ve ever known. No one even thinks about it.
The Naga, whose six additional heads represent the six non-Buddhist teachers, is often seen coiled under the Buddha to elevate him out of flooding waters and over him to protect him from the monsoon rain. One overcome, all energies serve the master.
– case 70, The Six Non-Buddhist Teachers
Pure, original nature comes through in all forms. It gives rise to everything, even questions
– case 223, Pure Original Nature
Why are the results of pure original nature subject to change?
Pure original nature must be tumultuous or it would have settled by now.
I’ll take a good back-scratch over just about everything.
Restraint, self restraint, is a coiled spring. Though often the outcome is the same as inattention it’s a vessel of motion in storage.
Very dark beer is a soul unto itself. There isn’t much I’ll crave like a very dark beer.
You have to set sail upon very rough seas in a completely unsuitable vessel. Your shitty home-made row boat is sinking.
There will be times when you are so fully dedicated to a some cause that it’ll occupy all of your thoughts. After that, a time will come when you won’t care about it at all.
A temple stay though temporary is permanent.
Military service though temporary is permanent.
Travel though temporary is permanent.
Childhood though temporary is permanent.
Sharing your feelings though temporary is permanent.
Do I seek warmth or a struggle against the cold?
Warmth will stop my shivering and so will struggle.
Entropy overcomes heat but struggle presses on against it.