A Quote by Dogen

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

Dogen

Quote Topics

Breaking Clear Even Light Mind Reflecting Still Water Waves

Quote Author

Dogen
Japanese - Leader
January 19, 1200 - September 22, 1253

When the mind is turbulent, uncontrolled and restless, it is like a pond of water that is filled with mud. Therefore when we look within ourselves, all we perceive is the mud of our material conceptions of life. But when the mind is still through discipline, and through yoga, it is like a pond that has no waves and no turbulence. Then we can perceive through that crystal clear water the eternal nature of our soul.

Radhanath Swami

Her voice, high and clear, moved through the leaves, through the sunlight. It splashed onto the gravel, the grass. He imagined the notes falling into the air like stones into water, rippling the invisible surface of the world. Waves of sound, waves of light: his father had tried to pin everything down, but the world was fluid and could not be contained.

Kim Edwards

The mind is like a lake lashed into waves. Make the water of the lake clear and calm.

Swami Prabhavananda

Water becomes clear and transparent when in a quiescent stage. How much the more wonderful will be the mind of a sage when poised in quiescence! It is the mirror of heaven and earth, reflecting the ten thousand things.

Zhuangzi

Distresses, however heavy at the time, appear light, and even joyous, to the reflecting mind, when worthily overcome.

Samuel Richardson

Life reorders you when you go into the clear light. Even the causal structure is liquefied. The clear light of reality, the dharmakaya, changes us into beings of light.

Frederick Lenz

The undisturbed mind is like the calm body water reflecting the brilliance of the moon. Empty the mind and you will realize the undisturbed mind.

Yagyu Jubei Mitsuyoshi

Your mind is made up of light. We call it the dharmakaya, the clear light of reality. The transcendental eternal light is everywhere. It's the light of god or whatever you want to call it.

Frederick Lenz

Let's say you dissolve and become infinite light. There is this sense of being light even though the mind is not thinking it, one feels it, which indicates that one is still there - at least half of one.

Frederick Lenz

Muddy water will become clear if allowed to stand undisturbed, and so too will the mind become clear if it is allowed to be still.

Ming-Dao Deng

The moods of a river change from hour to hour and day to day. It can be still and serene as a glassy mirror, reflecting the clouds that pass over it and the trees on its banks. Or, when a light breeze springs up, the surface of the river may be broken into little diamond lights reflecting the distant sun.

Ernie Lyons

As regards the quietude of the sage, he is not quiet because quietness is said to be good. He is quiet because the multitude of things cannot disturb his quietude. When water is still, one's beard and eyelashes are reflected in it. A skilled carpenter uses it in a level to obtain a measurement. If still water is so clear, how much more are the mental faculties! The mind of the sage is the mirror of heaven and earth in which all things are reflected.

Zhuangzi

The mind that thought of light, heavy, grey, yellow, still, swift, also conceived of magic that would make heavy things light and able to fly, turn grey lead into yellow gold, and the still rock into a swift water. If it could do the one, it could do the other; it inevitably did both. When we can take green from grass, blue from heaven, and red from blood, we have already an enchanter's power.

J. R. R. Tolkien

It's the board I had a problem with. I could totally handle being in the water and stuff. I came here to do my own stunts. Water! Ocean! Action! Big waves! That water, that water has tamed me. You can feel that the world is connected to it.