Top 10 Quotes & Sayings by Taizan Maezumi

Explore popular quotes and sayings by Taizan Maezumi.

Last updated on December 21, 2024.

Hakuyū Taizan Maezumi was a Japanese Zen Buddhist teacher and rōshi, and lineage holder in the Sōtō, Rinzai, and Sanbo Kyodan traditions of Zen. He combined the Rinzai use of kōans and the Sōtō emphasis on shikantaza in his teachings, influenced by his years studying under Hakuun Yasutani in Sanbo Kyodan. He founded or co-founded several institutions and practice centers, including the Zen Center of Los Angeles, White Plum Asanga, Yokoji Zen Mountain Center and the Zen Mountain Monastery.

February 24, 1931 - May 15, 1995

Source: Wikipedia

Mere physical sitting is not enough. You have to sit carefully and attentively. Let your body and breathing sit. Let your mind and emotions sit. Let your blood circulation sit. Let everything sit. Then your sitting becomes indestructible, immovable.

Taizan Maezumi

Just live that life. It doesn't matter whether it is life or hell, life of the hungry ghost, life of the animal, it's okay; just live that life, see. And as a matter of fact no other way. Where you stand, where you are, that's what your life is right there, regardless of how painful it is or how enjoyable it is. That's what it is.

Taizan Maezumi

As long as we remain within the confines of the thinking mind, we can’t experience the state of non-thinking. If we can’t experience non-thinking, we will not understand what our life truly is. Please realize this for yourself! Just sit.

Taizan Maezumi

Emptiness is in fact form when we forget the self. There's nothing in the universe *other* than ourself. Nothing to compare, name, or identify. When it's the only thing there is, how can we talk about it?

Taizan Maezumi

Have good trust in yourself, not in the One that you think you should be, but in the One that you are.

Taizan Maezumi

Details are all there are.

Taizan Maezumi

When you expect something, when you aim at something, right there you dilute your energy; you split your energy, you split your attention and it becomes more than the place of yin and yang. You do not only divide, but you create the problem.

Taizan Maezumi

Where you stand, where you are, that's what your life is right there, regardless of how painful it is or how enjoyable it is. That's what it is.

Taizan Maezumi

Practice is this life, and realization is this life, and this life is revealed right here and now.

Taizan Maezumi

I am not devaluing thoughts. Just do not mix up what we think with what actually is.

Taizan Maezumi