Top 141 Quotes & Sayings by Dogen - Page 2

Time is three eyes and eight elbows.

When you paint Spring, do not paint willows, plums, peaches, or apricots - just paint Spring.

Your body is like a dew-drop on the morning grass, your life is as brief as a flash of lightning. Momentary and vain, it is lost in a moment.

Nothing in the entire universe is hidden.

Look for Buddha outside your own mind, and Buddha becomes the devil.

The true person is Not anyone in particular; But like the deep blue color Of the limitless sky, It is everyone, Everywhere in the world.

If you do not get it from yourself, where will you go for it?

Just as parents care for their children, you should bear in mind the whole universe.

The one and only thing required is to free oneself from the bondage of mind and body alike, putting the Buddha's own seal upon yourself. If you do this as you sit in ecstatic meditation, the whole universe itself scattered through the infinity of space turns into enlightenment. This is what I mean by the Buddha's seal.

To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by the ten thousand things.

When you walk in the mist, you get wet.

Do not miss the opportunity of offering even a single drop into the ocean of merit or a grain atop the mountain of the roots of beneficial activity.

Students today should live fully every moment of time. This dew-like life fades away; time speeds swiftly. In this short life of ours, avoid involvement in superfluous things and just study the Way.

Emptiness is bound to bloom, like hundreds of grasses blossoming.

Do not be amazed by the true dragon.

Learn the backward step that turns your light inward to illuminate your self. Body and mind of themselves will drop away, and your original face will be manifest.

To what shall I liken the world? Moonlight, reflected In dewdrops, Shaken from a crane's bill.

Though it has no thought of keeping watch, it's not for naught that the scarecrow stands in the grain field.

Handle even a single leaf of green in such a way that it manifests the body of the Buddha. This in turn allows the Buddha to manifest through the leaf.

When you ride in a boat and watch the shore, you might assume that the shore is moving. But when you keep your eyes closely on the boat, you can see that the boat moves. Similarly, if you examine myriad things with a confused body and mind you might suppose that your mind and nature are permanent. But when you practice intimately and return to where you are, it will be clear that there is nothing that has unchanging self.

There are thousands upon thousands of students who have practiced meditation and obtained its fruits. Do not doubt its possibilities because of the simplicity of the method. If you can not find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?

Through one word, or seven words, or three times five, even if you investigate thoroughly myriad forms, nothing can be depended upon. Night advances, the moon glows and falls into the ocean. The black dragon jewel you have been searching for, is everywhere.

There are those who, attracted by grass, flowers, mountains, and waters, flow into the Buddha Way.

When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point.

Yet, though it is like this, simply, flowers fall amid our longing and weeds spring up amid our antipathy.

Realization doesn't destroy the individual any more than the reflection of the moon breaks a drop of water. A drop of water can reflect the whole sky.

Clearly I know, the mind is mountains, rivers, and the great earth; sun, moon, and stars.

Whenever learners or those beyond learning awaken the mind, for the first time they plant one buddha-nature. Working with the four elements and five clusters, if they practice sincerely they attain enlightenment. Working with plants, trees, fences and walls, if they practice sincerely they will attain enlightenment. This is because the four elements and five clusters and plants, trees, fences and walls are fellow students; because they are of the same essence, because they are the same mind and the same life, because they are the same body and the same mechanism.

What you think in your own mind to be good, or what people of the world think is good, is not necessarily good.

Set aside all involvements and let the myriad things rest. Zazen is not thinking of good, not thinking of bad. It is not conscious endeavour. It is not introspection. Do not desire to become a buddha; let sitting or lying down drop away. Be moderate in eating and drinking. Be mindful of the passing of time, and engage yourself in zazen as though you are saving your head from fire.

People who truly follow the Way would do well to conceal the fact that they are Buddhists.

Consider that nirvana is itself no other than our life.

Since we are provided with both a body and a mind, we grasp onto the physical forms we see. Since we are provided with both a body and a mind, we cling to the sounds we hear. As a consequence, we make ourselves inseparable from all things, yet we are not like some shadowy figure 'lodging' in a mirror or like the moon in water. Whenever we witness what is on the one side, its opposite side will be in darkness.

I asked, "What are words?" The tenzo said, "One, two, three, four, five." I asked again, "What is practice?" "Nothing in the entire universe is hidden."

An ancient buddha said, “Mountains are mountains; waters are waters.” These words do not mean mountains are mountains; they mean mountains are mountains.

The recognition of the coming and going of things is a first step in training and practice.

Do not arouse disdainful mind when you prepare a broth of wild grasses; do not arouse joyful mind when you prepare a fine cream soup.

In a mind clear as still water, even the waves, breaking, are reflecting its light.

In doing zazen it is desirable to have a quiet room. You should be temperate in eating and drinking, forsaking all delusive relationships. Setting everything aside, think of neither good nor evil, right nor wrong. Thus having stopped the various functions of your mind, five up even the idea of becoming a Buddha.

Since it is the practice of enlightenment, that practice has no beginning and since it is enlightenment within the practice, that realization has no end.

To study the Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self.

To study the buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away. No trace of realization remains, and this no trace continues endlessly.

What is the way of the Buddha? It is to study the self. What is the study of the self? It is to forget oneself. To forget oneself is to enlightened by everything in the world.

Forgetting oneself is opening oneself

In the stream, Rushing past To the dusty world, My fleeting form Casts no reflection.

Refraining from all evil, not clinging to birth and death, working in deep compassion for all sentient beings, respecting those over you and pitying those below you, without any detesting or desiring, worrying or lamentation - this is what is called Buddha. Do not search beyond it.

A fish swims in the ocean, and no matter how far it swims there is no end to the water. A bird flies in the sky, and no matter how far it flies there is no end to the air. However the fish and the bird have never left their elements. Thus each of them totally covers its full range, and each of them totally experiences its realm... Know that water is life and air is life. The bird is life and the fish is life. Life must be the bird and life must be the fish... practice, enlightenment and people are like this.

Understand clearly that when a great need appears a great use appears also; when there is small need there is small use; it is obvious, then, that full use is made of all things at all times according to the necessity thereof.

When the old plum tree blooms, the entire world blooms.

The coming and going of birth and death is a painting. Unsurpassed enlightenment is a painting. The entire phenomenal universe and the empty sky are nothing but a painting.

If we seek the Buddha outside the mind, the Buddha changes into a devil.

In a snowfall that covers the winter grass a white heron uses his own whiteness to disappear.

Be moderate in eating and drinking. Mindful of the passing of time, engage yourself in zazen as though saving your head from fire.

Sitting is the gateway of truth to total liberation.

If we look at the world with a deluded body and mind, we will think that our self is permanent. But if we practice correctly and return to our true self, we will realize that nothing is permanent

Those who practice know whether realization is attained or not, just as those who drink water know whether it is hot or cold

Those who see worldly life as an obstacle to Dharma see no Dharma in everyday actions. They have not yet discovered that there are no everyday actions outside of Dharma.

Mountains and rivers at this very moment are the actualization of the world of the ancient Buddhas. Each, abiding in its phenomenal expression, realizes completeness.

Why abandon a seat in your own home to wander in vain through dusty regions of another land? If you make one false step, you miss what is right before your eyes.

When mountains and waters are painted, blue, green, and red paints are used, strange rocks and wondrous stones are used, the four jewels and the seven treasures are used. Rice-cakes are painted in the same manner. When a person is painted, the four great elements and five skandhas are used.