Tag: Stones on the Path

“I lay on the bowsprit, with the water foaming into spume under me, the masts with every sail white in the moonlight towering above me. I became drunk with the beauty and singing rhythm of it, and for a moment lost myself–actually lost my life. I was set free … dissolved in the sea, became white sails and flying spray, became beauty and rhythm and the high dim-starred sky. … I belonged within a unity and joy to life itself.”
~ Eugene O’Neil

“Who can untangle the tangle of this world?”
~ Buddhagosa

“Life is misery and miraculous beauty. The word ‘miracle’ has been used too often and has lost its value. But we live in miracles. The thrushes in the park, the ducks drifting on the canals, the floating seagulls, but also the car on the highway, the mechanical digger in the polder and the large square apartment blocks. Whoever can take the time and the peace to observe is surprised and feels the void of his own being.”
~ Janwillem van de Wetering

“Life is this simple: We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and the Divine is shining through it all the time. This is not just a nice story or a fable. It is true.”
~ Thomas Merton

“I believe in the essential unity of all that lives. Therefore I believe that if one person gains spiritually the whole world gains, and if one person falls, the world falls to that extent.”
~ Mohandas K. Gandhi

“What need have I of gold? The whole world is gold for me!”
~ Naropa

“There is neither heaven nor earth,
only snow,
falling incessantly.”
~ Hashin

“All human beings should try to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why.”
~ James Thurber

“Somehow — I [Jakuso Kwong] didn’t drop it — the teacup. a temple treasure, dropped itself. You know how those things go? You’re positive you didn’t drop it, but somehow the teacup left the table. And I missed it and it fell on the floor and broke! And I felt so bad. And then Katagiri Roshi went, ‘Oh ooooooh.’ And then Suzuki Roshi went ‘ooooooh, ooooooh, ooooh, ooh, oh.’ Then my mind started working. I could glue it back together! But Suzuki Roshi came over and we picked up the pieces. And he took the pieces and he stuffed them into the garbage so deep that even my mind couldn’t get to them.”
~ “Dropped” Zen

“Karma means you don’t get away with nothin’.”
~ Ruth Denison