Tag: Stones on the Path

“People with opinions just go around bothering one another.”
~The Buddha

“To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust.”
~Henry David Thoreau

“Clomp clomp the monk’s feet
through ice and dark
drawing sweet water.”
~Bashō

“A little nonsense now and then is cherished by the wisest men.”
~Roald Dahl

“In Zen meditation we think non-thinking — that is, we think nothing. What this means is that our whole psychological mind ceases to function, and as a result, our whole being becomes united with the essence of mind, which we signify by Mind. You call this essence the God within you, absoluteness, ultimate reason — it doesn’t matter. No matter what you call it, to unite with this essence is the very reason we are gathered here to meditate.”
~Robert Aitken

“Winter having come,
the crows perch
on the scarecrow.”
~Kikaku

“How can I construct my humble hut right here in the midst of Oxford Circus? How can I do that in the confusion of cars and buses? How can I listen to the singing of birds and also to the leaping of fish? How can one turn all the showings of the shop window displays into the freshness of green leaves swayed by the morning breeze? How am I to find the naturalness, artlessness, utter self-abandonment of nature in the utmost artificiality of human works? This is the great problem set before us these days.”
~D.T. Suzuki, addressing a conference of world religions in London, 1936

“Let life happen to you. Believe me: life is in the right, always.”
~Rainer Maria Rilke

“Those who are unawakened grasp their thoughts and feelings, their body, their perceptions and consciousness, and take them as solid, separate from the rest. Those who are awakened have the same thoughts and feelings, perceptions, body and consciousness, but they are not grasped, not held, not taken as oneself.”
~The Buddha

“At first you will think of practice as a limited part of your life. In time you will realize that everything you do is part of your practice.”
~Baba Ram Dass