Tag: Stones on the Path

Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself and yourself alone one question. This question is on that only a vary old man asks. My benefactor told me about it once when I was young and my blood was too vigorous for me to understand it. Now I do understand it. I will tell you what it is: “Does this path have a heart?” If it does, the path is good. If it doesn’t, it is of no use.
~ Don Juan

Not knowing how near the truth is, we seek it far away.
~ Hakuin

Enlightenment is not about becoming something or someone else. It is the recognition of our intrinsic human nature, which is absolute truth. This absolute true nature is called “Buddha nature.” The term Buddha, from the Sanskrit tatha, or tathagata, means “gone beyond,” going beyond an ignorant state to become completely inseparable from absolute truth, which is our genuine ground. This is the essence of Buddhism and the main focus of our understanding and practice.
~ Mindroling Khandro Rinpoche

Not always so.
~ Shunru Suzuki, summing up the Buddha’s teaching

I do not want to be right in theory but in nature.
~ Paul Cézanne

Nature teaches more the she preaches. There are no sermons in stones. It is easier to get a spark out of a stone than a moral.
~ John Burroughs

Above the saddle, no rider, Below the saddle, no horse.
~ Zen saying

Zen does not teach, it points.
~ D.T. Suzuki

Unify your attention. Do not listen with your ears but with your mind; do not listen with your mind but with your essence. The ears can’t do more than to listen, the mind cannot do more than to recognize. As for the essence, it is a void completely unengaged. The Way gathers only in the void.
~ Confucius

In an archery contest, when the stakes are earthenware tiles a contestant shoots with skill. When the stakes are belt buckles he becomes hesitant, and if the stakes are pure gold he becomes nervous and confused. There is no difference as to his skill but, because here is something he prizes, he allows outward considerations to weigh on his mind. All those who consider external things important are stupid within.
~ Chuang-tzu

A mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions.
~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

That which has been successfully defined has been successfully killed.
~ Christmas Humphreys

The difference between a journey and a pilgrimage is this: on a journey, reaching the goal means success; a pilgrimage is successful only when each step becomes the goal.
~ Brother David Steindl-Rast