In stillness by the empty window I sit in formal meditation, Navel and nose in alignment, Ears parallel with the shoulders. Moonlight floods the room; The rain stops but the eaves Drip and drip. Perfect this moment; In vast emptiness, Understanding deepens.
— Ryokan
A single path among ten thousand trees, A misty valley hidden among a thousand peaks. Not yet autumn, but already leaves are falling; Not much rain, but still the rocks grow dark. With my basket I hunt for mushrooms; With my bucket I draw pure spring water. Unless you got lost on purpose You would never get this far.
— Ryokan
There is a delicious irony in the fact that Zen temples and rituals set up for the sole purpose of studying impermanence haven’t changed in hundreds of years.
The world is not a problem.
Our thoughts about it are.
Before I had studied Zen for thirty years, I saw mountains as mountains, and rivers as rivers. When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge, I came to the point where I saw that mountains are not mountains, and rivers are not rivers. But now that I have got its very substance I am at rest. For it’s just that I see mountains once again as mountains, and rivers once again as rivers.
— Ch’uan Teng Lu, The Way of Zen
Zen begins at the point where there is nothing further to seek, nothing to be gained.
— Alan Watts
Go as deep as you can into life, And you will be able to let go, Of even blossoms.
— Ryokan
There’s not much difference between a koan and a joke.
Structurally they both wrong-foot the recipient to reveal something obvious that was hidden.
All paths lead directly here from here.
A Zen student asked: “What happens after enlightenment?”
The master replied: “The washing up.”
One Zen student said, "My teacher is the best. He can go days without eating."
The second said, "My teacher has so much self-control, he can go days without sleeping."
The third said, "My teacher is so wise that he eats when he's hungry and sleeps when he's tired."
Zen has a habit of treating big metaphysical questions as trivial, while bestowing great reverence on the smallest, everyday, ordinary moments. The point is that there is no real difference between the two — a cup of tea and the meaning of existence deserve exactly the same quality of attention.
If we feel we’re becoming enlightened, that’s delusion.
— Kodo Sawaki
Zen is not about becoming something special; it is about returning to who you actually are. It is the realisation of the self before any concepts or ideas were formed.
— Kodo Sawaki
