“When we practice zazen our mind always follows our breathing. When we inhale, the air comes into the inner world. When we exhale, the air goes out to the outer world. The inner world is limitless, and the outer world is also limitless. We say “inner world” or “outer world,” but actually there is just one whole world. In this limitless world, our throat is like a swinging door. The air comes in and goes out like someone passing through a swinging door. If you think, “I breathe,” the “I” is extra. There is no you to say “I.” What we call “I” is just a swinging door which moves when we inhale and when we exhale. It just moves; that is all. When your mind is pure and calm enough to follow this movement, there is nothing: no “I,” no world, no mind nor body; just a swinging door.”

“Wherever you are, you are one with clouds
and one with sun and the stars you see.
You are one with everything.
This is more true than I can say,
and more true than you can hear.”

“When you bow, you should just bow; when you sit, you should just sit; when you eat, you should just eat. If you do this, the universal nature is there. In Japanese we call it ichigyo-zammai, or ‘one act samadhi.’ Zammai (or samadhi) is ‘concentration.’ Ichigyo is ‘one practice.’ ”

“Doing something is expressing our own nature.”

“There are, strictly speaking, no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity.”

“When you do something,
you should burn yourself up completely,
like a good bonfire,
leaving no trace of yourself.”

“When you listen to someone, you should give up all your preconceived ideas and your subjective opinions; you should just listen to him, just observe what his way is. We put very little emphasis on right and wrong or good and bad. We just see things as they are with him, and accept them. This is how we communicate with each other. Usually when you listen to some statement, you hear it as a kind of echo of yourself. You are actually listening to your own opinion. If it agrees with your opinion you may accept it, but if it does not, you will reject it or you may not even really hear it.”

“If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything,
it is open to everything.
In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities,
but in the experts mind there are few.”

“There is also the real secret of the arts:
always be a beginner.”

“The world is its own magic.”

“Zen is not some fancy, special art of living.
Our teaching is just to live, always in reality,
in its exact sense.
To make our effort, moment after moment, is our way.”


Source: Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
3 Responses
  1. Anonymous Says:

    The nature of existence is being described as sat chit ananda ,existence/just beingness ,consciousness/'attention' and bliss. Wats yr experience of bliss?Does its intensity comes and goes(i expect so....its unrealistic to expect anyone can feel 'high' all the time,like on drugs? funny to even imagine that haha ).R u blissful all time?


  2. Anonymous Says:

    ".... When all(sheaths) have been discarded, wat remains is just dis - satchitananda ..."


  3. Soh Says:

    My experience is no longer Sat Chit Ananda as True Self but transformed into Empty-Clarity-Bliss, means more aligned with how Tibetan Buddhism describes Buddha-Nature. Or Soto Zen.

    Interesting you mentioned drugs and intensity, I actually wrote this to an online friend who shared a drug experience with me just last week and said he "loves the intensity". I wrote back to him, "Nowadays my enlightenment has stabilised to the degree that the tripping intensity is experienced in my sober daily life, everything is so vibrant and alive and blissful even now... ...Completely gapless and distanceless, like the sound and blue sky is nearer to you than your own breath, in fact is you, distanceless. Not sure if you experienced that in a trip before."