A Quote by Yamada Koun
The practice of Zen is forgetting the self in the act of uniting with something.
Related Quotes
Different schools of Zen have evolved, principally the Rinzai and Soto orders. A whole hierarchy has developed for the teaching and practice of Zen. Zen has become, to a certain degree, institutionalized.
What I term Zen, old Zen, the original face of Zen, new Zen, pure Zen, or Tantric Zen is - Zen in its essence.
So the most difficult thing is always to keep your beginner's mind. There is no need to have a deep understanding of Zen. Even though you read much Zen literature, you must read each sentence with a fresh mind. You should not say, "I know what Zen is," or "I have attained enlightenment." This is also the real secret of the arts: always be a beginner. Be very very careful about this point. If you start to practice zazen, you will begin to appreciate your beginner's mind. It is the secret of Zen practice.
The theory of Zen is non-competition. But that is not really true at all. People who practice Zen are very competitive. They are competing against emptiness.
The heart becomes wide by forgetting self, but narrow by thinking of the self and pitying one's self. To gain a wide and broad heart you must have something before you to look upon, and to rest your intelligence upon - and that something is the God-ideal.
My ethics, my sense of morality, my work ethic, my sense of compassion for suffering humanity, all of that comes directly out of the practice of poetry, as does my Buddhist practice. Poetry is a very important element in the history of Buddhism in general and in Zen in particular. It was really Zen that motivated me to change the way I perceive the world.
Tantric Zen is for someone who is really broad-minded. It is Bodhidharma's Zen, your Zen, my Zen. Which doesn't mean I have a problem with Japanese Zen. Most Japanese Zen is minding your p's and q's.
Zen is really extraordinarily simple as long as one doesn't try to be cute about it or beat around the bush! Zen is simply the sensation and the clear understanding ... that there is behind the multiplicity of events and creatures in this universe simply one energy -- and it appears as you, and everything is it. The practice of Zen is to understand that one energy so as to "feel it in your bones.
Love is an act of endless forgiveness. It means forget inconvenient duties, then forgive yourself for forgetting. By rigid practice and stern determination, it comes easy.
The America we all know has been a story of the many becoming one, uniting to preserve liberty, uniting to build the greatest economy in the world, uniting to save the world from unspeakable darkness.
The true purpose of Zen is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes. Zen practice is to open up our small mind.
A Zen master is someone whose life is one with enlightenment and self-discovery. They can never be separated from that. They've been essentially mastered by Zen.
The practice of Zen mind is beginner's mind. The innocence of the first inquiry—what am I?—is needed throughout Zen practice. The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the expert, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all the possibilities. It is the kind of mind which can see things as they are, which step by step and in a flash can realize the original nature of everything.
A well known Los Angeles newspaper referred to a small group of gentlemen who live up on a mountain and practice Zen as 'the Zen cult'. The cult phenomenon is definitely journalistically 'in'.
And finally, be assured that Zen asks nothing even as it promises nothing. One can be a Protestant Zen Buddhist, a Catholic Zen Buddhist or a Jewish Zen Buddhist. Zen is a quiet thing. It listens.
Since men cannot create new forces, but merely combine and control those which already exist, the only way in which they can preserve themselves is by uniting their separate powers in a combination strong enough to overcome any resistance, uniting them so that their powers are directed by a single motive and act in concert.
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