Dogen Zenji

Zazen is an activity that is an extension of the universe. Zazen is not the life of an individual, it’s the universe that’s breathing.

I come to realize that mind is no other than mountains and rivers and the great wide earth, the sun and the moon and stars.

The valley stream’s rushing sound is the eloquent tongue of Buddha. The mountain’s vibrant colours are nothing but the Buddha’s form.

If you are unable to find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?

You should study not only that you become a mother when your child is born, but also that you become a child.

[on enlightenment] Body and mind dropped off.

Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue with that; I’m right and I will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first – rock and roll or Christianity.

I take the kids to church and Sunday school. They love it. I really think it’s important for a child to feel that there are things that are bigger than your life out there.

The valley stream’s rushing sound is the eloquent tongue of Buddha. The mountain’s vibrant colours are nothing but the Buddha’s form.

The instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth, and have begun striving for ourselves.

The Buddhist notion of diligence is to delight in positive deeds.

Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool.

In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.

Priests are not men of the world; it is not intended that they should be; and a University training is the one best adapted to prevent their becoming so.

I believe a man is better anchored who has a belief in the Supreme Being.

Inner surrender leads to the highest truth.

You’ve got to have something to eat and a little love in your life before you can hold still for any damn body’s sermon on how to behave.

Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion – several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn’t straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother’s path to happiness and heaven.

Abandon yesterday, tomorrow and today. Cross over to the farthest shore beyond life and death.

A mind committed to compassion is like an overflowing reservoir – a constant source of energy, determination and kindness.

God is a concept by which we measure our pain.