Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought.
Real poetry, is to lead a beautiful life. To live poetry is better than to write it.
Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.
Before enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water. After enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water.
No matter where your interest lies, you will not be able to accomplish anything unless you bring your deepest devotion to it.
Make the universe your companion, always bearing in mind the true nature of things-mountains and rivers, trees and grasses, and humanity-and enjoy the falling blossoms and the scattering leaves.
There is nothing you can see that is not a flower; there is nothing you can think that is not the moon.
Operating superficially, the mind is random in its activity and stale in its insights and images. However, with practice and experience the mind is freed from the skull, and the fresh and new can appear as though for the first time. It
A flute with no holes is not a flute.
Without the bitterest cold that penetrates to the very bone, how can plum blossoms send forth their fragrance to the whole world?
In this poor body, composed of one hundred bones and nine openings, is something called spirit, a flimsy curtain swept this way and that by the slightest breeze. It is spirit, such as it is, which led me to poetry, at first little more than a pastime, then the full business of my life. There have been times when my spirit, so dejected, almost gave up the quest, other times when it was proud, triumphant. So it has been from the very start, never finding peace with itself, always doubting the worth of what it makes.
Come, butterfly It's late- We've miles to go together.
The moon and sun are travelers through eternity. Even the years wander on. Whether drifting through life on a boat or climbing toward old age leading a horse, each day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.
Learn how to listen as things speak for themselves.
The desire to break the silence with constant human noise is, I believe, precisely an avoidance of the sacred terror of that divine encounter.
Go to the pine if you want to learn about the pine, or to the bamboo if you want to learn about the bamboo. And in doing so, you must leave your subjective preoccupation with yourself. Otherwise you impose yourself on the object and you do not learn.
From the pine tree, learn of the pine tree; And from the bamboo, of the bamboo
An autumn night - don’t think your life didn’t matter.
Go to the object. Leave your subjective preoccupation with yourself. Do not impose yourself on the object. Become one with the object. Plunge deep enough into the object to see something like a hidden glimmering there.
How much I desire! Inside my little satchel, the moon, and flowers
the universe and its beings are a complementarity of empty infinity, intimate interrelationships, and total uniqueness of each and every being.
When your consciousness has become ripe in true zazen-pure like clear water, like a serene mountain lake, not moved by any wind-then anything may serve as a medium for realization.
With every gust of wind, the butterfly changes its place on the willow.
The oak tree: not interested in cherry blossoms.
The temple bell stops but I still hear the sound coming out of the flowers.
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