Dogen Zenji

In a mind clear as still water, even the waves, breaking, are reflecting its light.

The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in one dewdrop on the grass.

One must be deeply aware of the impermanence of the world.

[on enlightenment] Body and mind dropped off.

To study Buddhism is to study ourselves. To study ourselves is to forget ourselves.

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

The Zen expression Kill the Buddha!” means to kill any concept of the Buddha as something apart from oneself.

The truth of Zen, just a little bit of it, is what turns one’s humdrum life into one of art.

If we could get all religions together on a common purpose-the elimination of jealousies and the things that make men covet another’s belongings, we would be a long way toward the goal of outmoding war, depression and poverty.

I have a bit of supernatural take on life. For a moment, I went over to the other side. Since then, I can feel the presence of the departed. I’m very sensitive to it.

What about Jesus Christ? I say that he was a precursor of idealists; a precursor of socialists.

Methuselah lived to be 969 years old . You boys and girls will see more in the next fifty years than Methuselah saw in his whole lifetime.

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.

To a brave man, good and bad luck are like his left and right hand. He uses both.

To understand everything is to forgive everything.

Your talent is God’s gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God.

Live happily in the present moment. It is the only moment we have.

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.

Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.

You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.

We are desire. It is the essence of the human Soul, the secret of our existence. Absolutely nothing of human greatness is ever accomplished without it. Not a symphony has been written, a mountain climbed, an injustice fought, or a love sustained apart from desire. Desire fuels our search for the life we prize. – John Elderidge