Every cause is the effect of something else, and every effect is the cause of something else. What may seem a curse may be a blessing, and what may seem a blessing may be a curse. Hardship is a blessing when it spurs effort and development; ease is a curse when it increases complacency and self-indulgence. Muso Kokushi, Dream Conversations on Buddhism and Zen
Very soft is true strength
With harmony comes luck
Follow situation then get happiness
Forbearance will make you a great man
Zen Master Seung Sahn
"Garbage human being becomes monk, and garbage monk becomes a Zen student, and garbage Zen student becomes a Buddha." Korean saying... or truth?
A student once asked Suzuki Roshi, "What should a zen student do with his spare time?" Suzuki first looked perplexed and repeated the phrase, "spare time?" He then began to smile and repeated again, "spare time", and started laughing uproariously.
Concert pianist Vladimir Horowitz played a dissonant contemporary composition at a private gathering. When he had finished, someone asked, "I just don't understand what that composition means, Mr. Horowitz. Could you please explain?" Without a word, Horowitz played the composition again, turned to his questioner, and announced, "That's what it means!" in Philip Kapleau, Awakening to Zen
"... I will opt for a more modest regimen: three weeks of tea and miso broth.
I am not trying to be macho. I am genuinely curious about the nature of desire. My whole life has been spent chasing one desire after another. Where does it come from and how does it control me? What happens if i don't follow each desire that comes into my mind? What happens if i don't eat for a short period?
What happens is what any idiot could have guessed would happen: i am ravenously hungry. ...There's no way to get around this feeling of hunger. No way to avoid the pangs in my stomach and the intense desire for a taste of bread, of butter, of anything. I make many cups of miso broth and tea each day. My mind is almost exclusively on food-related topics. I alternate between the mantra and visions of lasagna, pumpkin pie, and chocolate honey-dipped crullers. I write a few imaginary cookbooks and open an imaginary Zen restaurant called Cafe Joju.
What happened to all those other desires? Love, enlightenment, adventure, fame... All leveled to nothing. All extraneous. I only want food. Food in my tongue, taste in my mouth. I don't care what taste it is.
Food is life.
Why am i alive?
What is this life for?
What will i do with it?"
Jane Dobisz, The Wisdom of Solitude
"The only people for me are the mad ones,
the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved,
desirous of everything at the same time,
the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing,
but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles
exploding like spiders across the stars."
Jack Kerouac, On the Road
It's always a full moon: it's always a good day.
Even though just a crescent shows, it's there.
It's just not lit - there's a shadow.
Eido Roshi
"This body is no more stable than a bubble: it will soon disappear.
"Do you have the patience to wait
till your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving
till the right action arises by itself?"
Lao Tse, Tao Te Ching
"Sutras are not discourses to be understood,
but wisdom which needs to be made ours."Zen Master Dae Kwang, Inka Speech
"New things for me to learn. Like, that near can actually be further than you ever imagined. That cold can mean hot. Nothing can mean something, something can mean nothing. Even words can mean nothing, and as soon as they're said or thought or written down, they can immediately mean the opposite of what they seem to say. There's magic on the borders where the opposites meet, and there's bloody war." Ali Smith, Like
"Zen is not a puzzle. It cannot be solved by wit.
It is spiritual food for those who want to learn what life is and what our mission is."
Nyogen Senzaki
"He'd made a crayon sketch of his own body in the form of a vase with a deep black crack running through it. ...Several years later, he ran his finger along the crack, saying, 'You see here, this is where the light comes through.' With a yellow crayon, he drew light streaming through the crack into the body of the vase and said, 'Our hearts can grow strong at the broken places'."
Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart
"I couldn't hear the rest. Then i couldn't hear or feel anything, nothing there except the sound of the air in my nose and the cold of the air at the back of my throat. So i sat and listened to that, just that, and time went past and when i opened my eyes it was now.
The simplest of things. The in of air, the out. It's like, if you can stop everything else and just listen to that, you can even find the exact place where you first touch the rest of the world, the exact place where it first comes into you. When there's nothing but that, you can give yourself room. You can feel your lungs moving inside your rib cage like the opening and closing of wings."
Ali Smith, Like
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