Zen Daily Quotes

The beauty of traveling is understood along the way rather than at the end of the journey, just as the purpose of marriage isn’t about becoming Mr. and Mrs.’s, but is about the love that is expressed on a daily basis between two lovers. A journey is not made up of the destinations that we arrive at, but is composed within every step and each breath we make.

Why can't we simply borrow what is useful to us from Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, especially Zen, as we borrow from Christianity, science, American Indian traditions and world literature in general, including philosophy, and let the rest go hang? Borrow what we need but rely principally upon our own senses, common sense and daily living experience.

Is the sunrise of Mount Fuji more beautiful from the one you see in the countryside a bit closer to home? Are the beaches of Indonesia really that much more serene than those we have in our own countries? The point I make is not to downplay the marvels of the world, but to highlight the notion of the human tendency in our failure to see the beauty in our daily lives when we take off the travel goggles when we are home. It is the preconceived notion of a place that creates the difference in perception of environments rather than the actual geological location.

Do not permit the events of your daily lives to bind you, but never withdraw yourselves from them. Only by acting thus can you earn the title of 'A Liberated One'.

A big group of daily friends or a white painted house with bills and mirrors, are not a necessity to me—but an intelligent conversation while sharing another coffee, is.

Every day I wake up and ask myself, ‘How can I accept myself and others more fully?

Learn to observe your emotions without needing to act or distract yourself from them. Within that stillness your truest most vulnerable thoughts will arise and it is these thoughts that will show you where your healing work must begin.

Living in the present moment is the recurring baptism of the soul, forever purifying every new day with a new you.

Peace never hurries. To rush or force is contradictory to the very essence of peace.

Find something beautiful to focus on daily and allow Inspiration to have its way with you.

If there is anything Zen strongly emphasizes it is the attainment of freedom; that is, freedom from all unnatural encumbrances. Meditation is something artificially put on; it does not belong to the native activity of the mind. Upon what do the fowls of the air meditate? Upon what do the fish in the water meditate? They fly; they swim. Is not that enough? Who wants to fix his mind on the unity of God and man, or on the nothingness of life? Who wants to be arrested in the daily manifestations of his life-activity by such meditations as the goodness of a divine being or the everlasting fire of hell?

Every day, I take steps to resolve all my karmic ties, live with intention, smile and laugh often, express my love, and act on what brings me fulfillment. Why wait until we have one foot in the grave to suddenly become spiritual, forgiving, and at peace with the world?

Life requires time and effort. That is to say, when we eliminate time and effort, we eliminate life’s pleasures.

It is often the simple daily practices that influence our lives in dramatic ways.

All that exists is the present moment

Do not cling to your belief in what is and always should be. Practice nonattachment

Do less, not more

There is no need to be troubled by things that have not yet happened. Think only about what is happening right now. Almost all anxieties are intangible. They are the invention of your own

I’d later learn that in Japanese culture these long periods of silence, chinmoku (沈黙), were commonplace. It has its roots in Zen Buddhism, where silence is said to hold the secrets of existence. The Japanese proverb ‘It is better to leave many things unsaid’ captures the essence of chinmoku. Far from being awkward, in Japan silence is a natural part of daily interactions.

The search for the exotic, the strange, the unusual, the uncommon has often taken the form of pilgrimages, of turning away from the world, the 'Journey to the East,' to another country or to a different religion. The great lesson from the true mystics, from the Zen monks, and now also from the Humanistic and Transpersonal psychologists -- that the sacred is in the ordinary, that it is to be found in one's daily life, in one's neighbors, friends, and family, in one's back yard, and that travel may be a flight from confronting the sacred -- this lesson can be easily lost. To be looking elsewhere for miracles is to me a sure sign of ignorance that everything is miraculous.

Within nothingness there is infinite potential.” It means that human beings are born possessing nothing. Yet within all of us lies infinite potential. For this reason, there is nothing to fear. There is nothing to worry about. This is truth.

Interbeing: If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here either. So we can say that the cloud and the paper inter-are. “Interbeing” is a word that is not in the dictionary yet, but if we combine the prefix “inter-” with the verb “to be,” we have a new verb, inter-be. Without a cloud and the sheet of paper inter-are. If we look into this sheet of paper even more deeply, we can see the sunshine in it. If the sunshine is not there, the forest cannot grow. In fact, nothing can grow. Even we cannot grow without sunshine. And so, we know that the sunshine is also in this sheet of paper. The paper and the sunshine inter-are. And if we continue to look, we can see the logger who cut the tree and brought it to the mill to be transformed into paper. And we see the wheat. We know the logger cannot exist without his daily bread, and therefore the wheat that became his bread is also in this sheet of paper. And the logger’s father and mother are in it too. When we look in this way, we see that without all of these things, this sheet of paper cannot exist. Looking even more deeply, we can see we are in it too. This is not difficult to see, because when we look at a sheet of paper, the sheet of paper is part of our perception. Your mind is in here and mine is also. So we can say that everything is in here with this sheet of paper. You cannot point out one thing that is not here-time, space, the earth, the rain, the minerals in the soil, the sunshine, the cloud, the river, the heat. Everything co-exists with this sheet of paper. That is why I think the word inter-be should be in the dictionary. “To be” is to inter-be. You cannot just be by yourself alone. You have to inter-be with every other thing. This sheet of paper is, because everything else is. Suppose we try to return one of the elements to its source. Suppose we return the sunshine to the sun. Do you think that this sheet of paper will be possible? No, without sunshine nothing can be. And if we return the logger to his mother, then we have no sheet of paper either. The fact is that this sheet of paper is made up only of “non-paper elements.” And if we return these non-paper elements to their sources, then there can be no paper at all. Without “non-paper elements,” like mind, logger, sunshine and so on, there will be no paper. As thin as this sheet of paper is, it contains everything in the universe in it.

Disorder in your mind shows in your feet. It has long been said that you can tell a lot about a household by looking at its entrance hall, especially in Japanese homes, where we remove our shoes upon entering. If the footwear is perfectly lined up, or if it is all ajumble—you can know the state of mind of those who live there by just this one detail.

Zen is just a lifestyle, your everyday life. It is doing your best at your job, relationships, health, hobbies, and other daily activities!

Greater awareness brings about a greater appreciation of the people, places, and things in our lives. The more observant we are, the richer our daily experiences become.

Peace does not demand that everyone like or want the same reality.

This is why everyday life—daily routine—is very important for us. It can let us be free from time.

Adopt a sober, steady, continuous routine.

The three poisons are greed, anger, and ignorance.

The goodness of every day is determined not by what happens or by whom you meet, but by your own mind.

If the world is not going the way you want it to, perhaps it is better to change yourself. Then, whatever world you encounter, you can move through it comfortably and with ease.

The Law of Attraction takes into account all of your doubts. So, if you say you practice the Law of Attraction yet always carry an extra parachute with a Plan B, C, & D for those ‘just in case’ scenarios… you may be tricking yourself into believing that you believe when, in actuality, you are quite insecure. If you always have a backup plan ready – though it may come off as ‘prepared’ and ‘smart’ – it also implies that you do not fully trust that Spirit will always provide.

But sitting is not something that we do for a year or two with the idea of mastering it. Sitting is something we do for a lifetime. There is no end to the opening up that is possible for a human being. Eventually we see that we are the limitless, boundless ground of the universe. Our job for the rest of our life is to open up into that immensity and to express it. Having more and more contact with this reality always brings compassion for others and changes our daily life. We live differently, work differently, relate to people differently. Zen is a lifelong study. It isn’t just sitting on a cushion for thirty or forty minutes a day. Our whole life becomes practice, twenty-four hours a day.

I am not a victim of circumstance, situation, nor any external condition of life. I am an active participant in the creation of my reality, meaning, I am actively participating in the creation of what I think, what I feel, what I spend my time on, who I spend my time with, what I consume mentally and physically, and all the blessings and contrastive experiences that come my way. Every effect has a cause and every cause has an effect, all of which include me because it is my life to live, my life to use, and my life to enjoy.

The war going on within you is a reflection of every war that has ever taken place… past, present, and future. Each individual is a Spiritual Warrior and there is only one demon you must conquer…your SELF. You are the devil and you are the savior. You are a human with free will, and every morning you wake up and you make a choice.

In the words of Chinese Zen master Layman P’ang (c. 740–808 A.D.): My daily affairs are quite ordinary; but I’m in total harmony with them. I don’t hold on to anything, don’t reject anything; nowhere an obstacle or conflict. Who cares about wealth and honor? Even the poorest thing shines. My miraculous power and spiritual activity: drawing water and carrying wood.

It’s important that meditation is not seen as something that only happens when you are seated in a quiet place. Otherwise spirituality and our daily life become two separate things. That’s the primary illusion—that there is something called “my spiritual life,” and something called “my daily life.” When we wake up to reality, we find they are all one thing. It’s all one seamless expression of spirit.

Love is not the answer, peace is. Throughout my whole life I have experienced and seen others use love as a reason to treat people with unkindness by being controlling, jealous, shouting in anger, and projecting guilt and shame. If you love someone but there is not peace in your heart when you think of that person then your work is not done. Do not stop at love, continue all the way towards the freedom of inner peace. Love starts when peace begins. Without peace love is simply a mask for our insecurity, judgment, and egoic attachments.

Mastering our thoughts can only be achieved after we truly understand what reality is. Thus, it is time to shatter your pre-conceived concept of reality. First, the majority of what you perceive as reality exists only in your mind, and, chances are, you spend most hours of your life in this illusion.

Buddha is not divine. Buddha is your daily life.

Be aware of the type of humor you use in your daily life. Just because people are laughing doesn’t mean it is creating positive vibes.

We all want to hide our weaknesses and portray ourselves as more or better than we are.

Today I am embracing any adversity in my life. Today I will surf the waves of negativity and see how it is getting me to where I’m going next.

Keep your desires and anger in check, and strive to understand the nature of things.

Life is full of fortune and misfortune, but cherish being alive, every single day. Life will pass you by.

The image of the Zen philosopher is the monk up in the green, quiet hills, or in a beautiful temple on some rocky cliff. The Stoics are the antithesis of this idea. Instead, they are the man in the marketplace, the senator in the Forum, the brave wife waiting for her soldier to return from battle, the sculptor busy in her studio. Still, the Stoic is equally at peace.

Essentially, this extra structure covering our life has no reality. It has come to be there because of the misuse of our minds. It’s not a question of getting rid of it, since it has no reality; but it is a question of seeing its nature. And as we see its nature, instead of it being so thick and dark, the covering becomes more transparent: we see through it. Enlightenment (bringing in more light) is what happens in practice. Actually we’re not getting rid of a structure, we’re seeing through it as the dream it is, and as we realize its true nature its whole function in our life weakens; and at the same time we can see more accurately what is going on in our daily life. It’s as if we have to go full circle. Our life is always all right. There’s nothing

She explained to me that young people need lots of exercise and that we should exhaust ourselves on a daily basis or else we would have troublesome thoughts and dreams, which would result in troublesome actions.

On my journey from the fantastical to the practical, spirituality has gone from being a mystical experience to something very ordinary and a daily experience. Many don’t want this, instead they prefer spiritual grandeur, and I believe that is what keeps enlightenment at bay. We want big revelations of complexity that validates our perceptions of the divine. What a let down it was to Moses when God spoke through a burning bush! But that is exactly the simplicity of it all. Our spiritual life is our ordinary life and it is very grounded in every day experience. For me, it is the daily practice of kindness, mindfulness, happiness, and peace.

In my experience, however, if I focus too much on what the team sees, then it can be difficult to complete the garden as an expression of my own thoughts. Although it may seem counterintuitive, when it comes to coordinating what direction the rocks will face, the fewer people involved, the easier it is to synchronize. And when it’s time to make the final adjustments, it’s best to do it alone. Decisiveness is about having the ability to trust in yourself.

Bearing witness is not something to be done only at Auschwitz. When we bear witness to the unfolding of our daily lives, not shrinking from any situation that arises, we learn. We open to what is. And in that process, a healing arises.

Our preferences, our likes and dislikes—everything is a product of our own mind. In Zen Buddhism we say, “When you reach enlightenment, there are no likes or dislikes.” When we can see things for what they are, our predilections disappear.

Who are you without your labels and attachments to the issues you are passionate about? Remove the emotions, remove the beliefs and associations, and simply focus on the rational and practical applications that promote peaceful progression.

Zen opens a man's eyes to the greatest mystery as it is daily and hourly performed; it enlarges the heart to embrace eternity of time and infinity of space in its every palpitation; it makes us live in the world as if walking in the garden of Eden

Zen calls our attention to the wonders of the ordinary. There is a hidden dimension of beauty, richness, and harmony in the common world surrounding us, but we seldom take notice. Zen tries to stimulate our sensitivity to these natural wonders and hence to recover the joy in our daily lives.

Living simply means, for instance, that the mug you use every day for coffee is a mug that you really like—one that you take good care of and that you use for a long time. Acquire only good things that will truly be needed. A lifestyle of simplicity is the fundamental practice that will hone the mind.

Do you have a vacation coming up? Are you looking forward to the weekend so you can have some peace and quiet? Maybe, you think, after things settle down or after I get this over with. But how often has that ever actually worked? The Zen meditation teacher Jon Kabat-Zinn coined a famous expression: “Wherever you go, there you are.

Boredom isn’t even a real function within nature. It is a human glitch. Nature is beyond judgment; only humans cast broad sweeping judgments across their world about what’s good, what’s bad, what is or isn’t worth their time, etc. As soon as you cast judgement, you limit your world. Whenever you’re bored, it’s your own fault. Boredom is caused by judgement.

Like a sponge, we absorb, not liquid, but energy. Each morning we wake up as a fresh, dry sponge, ready to take in the world around us. Throughout the day, we interact with people, various energies, and a range of vibration. Each time, we absorb energy – either a small amount or a great deal – depending on whether the contact is direct or residual. And when we are filled to the point that we can absorb no more, we sometimes feel like we might explode. We know this bursting point – it reveals itself in our over-stimulated, over-stressed, near-crazy minds. Sleep often releases the energetic buildup, yet meditation works just as well. Meditation throughout the day “wrings out” our soggy, spongy selves. Deliberate mindfulness in the present moment can keep us from absorbing things we don’t resonate with, so that we no longer reach the point of mental breakdowns or emotional overloads.

Fifteen years ago, a business manager from the United States came to Plum Village to visit me. His conscience was troubled because he was the head of a firm that designed atomic bombs. I listened as he expressed his concerns. I knew if I advised him to quit his job, another person would only replace him. If he were to quit, he might help himself, but he would not help his company, society, or country. I urged him to remain the director of his firm, to bring mindfulness into his daily work, and to use his position to communicate his concerns and doubts about the production of atomic bombs. In the Sutra on Happiness, the Buddha says it is great fortune to have an occupation that allows us to be happy, to help others, and to generate compassion and understanding in this world. Those in the helping professions have occupations that give them this wonderful opportunity. Yet many social workers, physicians, and therapists work in a way that does not cultivate their compassion, instead doing their job only to earn money. If the bomb designer practises and does his work with mindfulness, his job can still nourish his compassion and in some way allow him to help others. He can still influence his government and fellow citizens by bringing greater awareness to the situation. He can give the whole nation an opportunity to question the necessity of bomb production. Many people who are wealthy, powerful, and important in business, politics, and entertainment are not happy. They are seeking empty things - wealth, fame, power, sex - and in the process they are destroying themselves and those around them. In Plum Village, we have organised retreats for businesspeople. We see that they have many problems and suffer just as others do, sometimes even more. We see that their wealth allows them to live in comfortable conditions, yet they still suffer a great deal. Some businesspeople, even those who have persuaded themselves that their work is very important, feel empty in their occupation. They provide employment to many people in their factories, newspapers, insurance firms, and supermarket chains, yet their financial success is an empty happiness because it is not motivated by understanding or compassion. Caught up in their small world of profit and loss, they are unaware of the suffering and poverty in the world. When we are not int ouch with this larger reality, we will lack the compassion we need to nourish and guide us to happiness. Once you begin to realise your interconnectedness with others, your interbeing, you begin to see how your actions affect you and all other life. You begin to question your way of living, to look with new eyes at the quality of your relationships and the way you work. You begin to see, 'I have to earn a living, yes, but I want to earn a living mindfully. I want to try to select a vocation not harmful to others and to the natural world, one that does not misuse resources.' Entire companies can also adopt this way of thinking. Companies have the right to pursue economic growth, but not at the expense of other life. They should respect the life and integrity of people, animals, plants and minerals. Do not invest your time or money in companies that deprive others of their lives, that operate in a way that exploits people or animals, and destroys nature. Businesspeople who visit Plum Village often find that getting in touch with the suffering of others and cultivating understanding brings them happiness. They practise like Anathapindika, a successful businessman who lived at the time of the Buddha, who with the practise of mindfulness throughout his life did everything he could to help the poor and sick people in his homeland.

The novelist Masao Abe has said, “In our daily life, there are moments when we are here with ourselves—moments in which we feel a vague sense of unity. But at other moments we find ourselves there—looking at ourselves from the outside. We fluctuate between here and there from moment to moment: homeless, without a place to settle.” He goes on to add that only humans experience this divisive self-consciousness, that plants and other animals just are what they are.

Sitting is essentially a simplified space. Our daily life is in constant movement: lots of things going on, lots of people talking, lots of events taking place. In the middle of that, it’s very difficult to sense what we are in our life. When we simplify the situation, when we take away the externals and remove ourselves from the ringing phone, the television, the people who visit us, the dog who needs a walk, we get a chance—which is absolutely the most valuable thing there is—to face ourselves.

Whether working in the yard or just going about the daily business of life, you are continually adjusting, trimming, touching, shaping, and tinkering with the wealth of things around you. It may be difficult for you to know when to stop. We are all torn between the extremes of taking care of things and leaving them alone, and we question whether many things could ever get along without us. We find ourselves with pruning shears in hand, snipping away at this or that, telling ourselves that we're only being helpful, redefining something else's space, removing that which is unappealing to us. It's not that we really want to change the world. We just want to fix it up slightly. We'd like to lose a few pounds or rid ourselves of some small habit. Maybe we'd like to help a friend improve his situation or repair a few loose ends in the lives of our children. All of this shaping and controlling can have an adverse affect. Unlike someone skilled in the art of bonsai gardening, we may *unintentionally* stunt much natural growth before it occurs. And our meddling may not be appreciated by others. Most things will get along superbly without our editing, fussing, and intervention. We can learn to just let them be. As a poem of long ago puts it, "In the landscape of spring, the flowering branches grow naturally, some are long, some are short.

Right mindfulness is about paying attention, whether we’re meditating or just going about our daily tasks. Being mindful helps us stay anchored in the present moment, which keeps us in touch with reality as it is. Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh describes mindfulness like this: “When you have a toothache, the feeling is very unpleasant, and when you do not have a toothache, you usually have a neutral feeling. However, if you can be mindful of the non-toothache, the non-toothache will become a feeling of peace and joy. Mindfulness gives rise to and nourishes happiness.” In this sense, mindfulness helps us become aware that at any given moment, we are capable of experiencing contentment. It’s just a matter of increasing our sphere of awareness to notice all the “non-toothaches” we’re currently experiencing.

Here is what one sexual abuse survivor told me about his practice: "I tend to go into these four-day funks of self- destruction. My therapist showed me a diagram with baseline emotions for people who have not suffered trauma, and superimposed over it a diagram of baseline emotions for pople who have. Apparently people who have suffered severe traume build neuropathways that lead them to predict traumatic events and then react to them, even if they aren't happening, and the fucks people up their entire lives. She believes it's my yoga practice and daily zazen that keeps my funks to four, maybe five days, instead of lasting for months, or even years. She went on to explain a bit about neurogenesis and studies being done right now about building new neuropathways. I think zazen is beneficial for trauma survivors because it instills in them enough calm and insight to not react in ways that have long-term self-destructive effects. On top of which it builds new neuropathways, rewiring conditioned reactions to trauma, both real and imaginary." We human beings generally subject our brains to a lot of abuse. WE create neural pathways where they are not needed by constantly rehashing pleasurable or painful experiences in order to more fully develop our sense of self.

CONFESSIONS OF A CLING-ON If a man is walking in a forest and makes a statement, but there is no woman around to hear it, is he still wrong? Or if a woman is walking in the forest and asks for something, and there is no man around to hear her, is she still needy? These Zen koans capture some of the frustrations people have with the opposite gender. And where is the dividing line between someone simply having a need, and someone being a needy person? Is it written in heaven somewhere what is too much need, too little need and just right amount of need for the “normal person?” Ask pop radio psychologists Dr. Laura, or Sally Jessie Rafael, or any number of experts who claim to know for sure, and you’ll get some very different answers. And isn’t it fun to see the new sophisticated ways our advanced culture is developing to make each other wrong? You better keep up with the latest technical terminology or you will be at the mercy of those who do. Whoever has read the latest most recent self-help book has the clear advantage. Example: Man: “Get real, would you! Your Venusian codependency has got you trapped in your learned helpless victim act, and indulging in your empowerment phobia again.” Woman: “When you call me codependent, I feel (notice the political correctness of the feeling word) that you are simply projecting your own disowned, unintegrated, emotionally unavailable Martian counterdependency to protect your inner ADD two year old from ever having to grow up. So there!” Speaking of diagnosis, remember the codependent. Worrying about codependency was like a virus that everyone had from about 1988 to 1994. Here’s a prayer to commemorate the codependent: The Codependent’s Prayer by Kelly Bryson Our Authority, which art in others, self-abandonment be thy name. Codependency comes when others’ will is done, At home, as it is in the workplace. give us this day our daily crumbs of love. And give us a sense of indebtedness, As we try to get others to feel indebted to us. And lead us not into freedom, but deliver us from awareness. For thine is the slavery and the weakness and the dependency, For ever and ever. Amen.

Achieving business Zen is a daily battle, and one you’ll sometimes lose, and that’s okay. What’s not okay is giving in to the chaos and accepting that stress is just normal. Sure, some stress is normal, but you can probably minimize your daily stress if you choose to figure out a plan. If Plan A doesn’t work for you, switch to Plan B. I’m currently on Plan Q, and who knows how long that plan will work. So here’s what I do: Breathe in. Breathe out. And get back up and try again.

it is always recommended that you meditate every day, and preferably in the same place and at the same time. This may not always be possible, so try and find a time and place that works best for you and try to stick with it. But don’t stress if you have to change your meditation schedule a couple of times until you finally find one that works. Just keep trying new scenarios. In fact, walking meditations and mindfulness can even be practiced as you go through your regular daily activities. Meditation

Begin Meditating On a Daily Basis

the living altar of Buddha Himself. Whatever we do, we do with grateful heart and pure joy sanctioned by Enlightened Consciousness; eating, drinking, talking, walking, and every other work of our daily life are the worship and devotion.

1. The Method of Instruction Adopted by Zen Masters. Thus far we have described the doctrine of Zen inculcated by both Chinese and Japanese masters, and in this chapter we propose to sketch the practice of mental training and the method of practising Dhyana or Meditation. Zen teachers never instruct their pupils by means of explanation or argument, but urge them to solve by themselves through the practice of Meditation such problems as—'What is Buddha?' What is self?' 'What is the spirit of Bodhidharma?' 'What is life and death?' 'What is the real nature of mind?' and so on. Ten Shwai (To-sotsu), for instance, was wont to put three questions[FN#229] to the following effect: (1) Your study and discipline aim at the understanding of the real nature of mind. Where does the real nature of mind exist? (2) When you understand the real nature of mind, you are free from birth and death. How can you be saved when you are at the verge of death? (3) When you are free from birth and death, you know where you go after death. Where do you go when your body is reduced to elements? The pupils are not requested to express their solution of these problems in the form of a theory or an argument, but to show how they have grasped the profound meaning implied in these problems, how they have established their conviction, and how they can carry out what they grasped in their daily life. [FN#229]

Zen is also the art of disciplining oneself to fully live life in every way possible on a daily basis.

Meditation reduces stress and increases mental focus. In fact, high levels of stress can damage both your mental and physical health. You can also expect to find your overall well-being improved through daily meditation. You will find that you have more energy for what you want to do as well as improved ability to concentrate on tasks while you do them. What

Incorporate order and structure into your life by creating daily routines. This is the only real way to fully liberate yourself, and to gain more mental energy to address what really matters. Learn

when it comes to interior design, Zen is a true reflection of balance, peace and harmony. Even though Zen is not an official design style and does not come with a list of strict rules, it is often sought after due to its minimalism, simplicity and purity of lines. It is more of a way to arrange your home such that it creates an atmosphere that will offset the stresses and problems of your daily life.

6. There is no Mortal who is Non-Moral or Purely Immoral. The same is the case with the third and the fourth class of people who are assumed as non-moral or purely immoral. There is no person, however morally degraded he may be, but reveals some good nature in his whole course of life. It is our daily experience that we find a faithful friend in the person even of a pickpocket, a loving father even in a burglar, and a kind neighbour even in a murderer.

Zen is noted for its physical and mental training. That the daily practice of Zazen[FN#12] and the breathing exercise remarkably improves one's physical condition is an established fact.

Zen holds that the faith must be based not on the dead Scriptures, but on living facts, that one must turn over not the gilt pages of the holy writ, but read between the lines in the holy pages of daily life, that Buddha must be prayed not by word of mouth, but by actual deed and work, and that one must split open,

Escape Chaos with Simple, Essential Rules When you operate your life and business without a few essential rules, you risk daily chaos. I think these rules help, but you may need to create your own. In fact, I beg you to create a few rules that help you build a framework that supports a stress-free business. Remember, you’re the Captain. What rules will help your ship sail smoothly?

Off and on, for several years, I’d been reading Zen, I’d flirted with Tantric Hinduism, I’d surfed the smaller swells of Sufism, and tried to get down with the Tao. It was all very eye-opening and inspirational, and while Asian mysticism is an easy target for the sneers of secular cynics and sectarian dogmatists alike, it’s far more compatible with modern science than the misinterpreted Levantine myths, ecclesiastical fairy tales, pious platitudes, and near-desperate wishful thinking I’d been fed in Southern Baptist Sunday School. The wisdom in those spiritual texts was obvious, yet I’d integrated it into my daily life with but minimal success. From a practical point of view, it was like trying to teach a monkey to play chess.

when you’re uncertain, simplicity is the best way to go.

Just as you draw one breath after another, perform the routine habitually.

Imagine if your office and your home were in the same building.

The ancient sages tell us that it is only through daily self-renewal of character that we can attain and continue at the height of our powers.

Therefore, in Zen one awakens to one’s True Self and takes firm hold of it. To give life to one’s True Self sufficiently in all the affairs of daily life and to practice living as a human being while purifying the entire world is perhaps the most complete way of saying it.

Sitting is one of the four dignified postures: walking, standing, sitting, and lying down. Zen is one of the six stages of spiritual perfection: dedication, commandments, perseverance, progress, meditation, and wisdom. Zen is clearly known as dhyana, a Sanskrit word for meditation. In Chinese it is translated as ching-lu, meaning quiet contemplation. It means to become stable and then quiet, to become peaceful after becoming quiet, and finally to contemplate carefully. For this reason the former four dignified postures and the six stages of spiritual perfection all arise from quiet contemplation. In Zen Buddhism, Zen combines the above six stages of perfection. In order to train in Zen it is proper to sit in meditation according to prescribed form. Therefore, sitting is regarded as correct for Zen training. For walking there is the method of kinhin or walking meditation. For standing there is the dignified manner of refinement in speaking and being silent in daily life. For lying down there is the way of reclining like a lion. These serve as variations of meditation. Therefore, it is said that in Zen Buddhism one of the four dignified postures is meditation. Thus there is a start and a finish in things, and a beginning and an end in matters; and if one knows where front and rear are one is near the Way. Students, please quietly contemplate this very carefully.31

When we eliminate effort, we eliminate life’s pleasures.

The aim of Zen practice is not to escape or transcend life’s discomfort. Zen practice is about plunging into the mystery of daily life just as it is.

The job of a Zen master is to transmit the dharma. The word dharma is a cognate of the Pali word for carrying. The dharma that is passed from teacher to student involves the essential teachings of the Buddha and the spirit of living those truths. Transmission is applied both to the ritual identification and acknowledgment of a particular student as the legitimate successor, or dharma heir, of a Zen master, and to the ordinary, daily interactions between the teacher and all students. Transmit is an oddly technical verb, and the analogies it occasions are oddly useful. If you imagine the dharma as an electrical current arcing across a distance from one conductive wire to another, you get the basic idea. However, if you have even a rudimentary grasp of physics, you know that the power of an electrical charge decreases as it travels this way This is precisely what is not supposed to happen to the dharma as it passes from master to disciple. A dharma heir is meant to be someone whose enlightenment or understanding equals or, preferably, surpasses that of the master.

Zen is Buddhism made simple again. The robes worn by Zen priests are plain black affairs (unlike the colorful getups favored by the Tibetans and their other Buddhist cousins), and even after receiving Transmission, the Zen master's daily dress is a dull brown robe. You can sit anywhere; Dogen Zenji said that the heart is the real zendo. This informs temple architecture. Plainness here is neither false humility nor a facade. It is true to the bone. Skeletal beams and rafters are seamlessly joined; they are not nailed or screwed into place; they are made to fit together. Inside a zendo, there is mostly open space, dimly lit, with a small central altar and a tan, a two-foot-high wooden platform built around the perimeter, where meditators sit on plain black cushions, facing the wall. There are few ceremonial objects—the teacher's staff, a stick of incense burning in a bowl—and it is rare to run into more than one or two bronze or wooden Buddhas. Zen rituals are spare, too. Music is reduced to an isolated ding or bong of a bell, the flat report of a mallet tapped against a slab of wood, and a thrumming bang from a giant bass drum. Even the chanting is monochromatic; students pitch their voices toward the deep, dark end of the register and grumble in unison.

To practice zazen, Suzuki-roshi often reminded his students, is to study the self. By 1983, the senior priests at Zen Center had logged a lot of hours in the study hall. The work and meditation schedule they kept was famous for its rigor. Typically, they sat for almost two hours every morning, beginning at five, attended a midday service, and sat again for an hour or two in the evening until nine. During the two annual Practice Periods, the daily meditation periods were extended. Once a month, they sat for twelve or fourteen hours—a one-day sesshin (intensive retreat). At the end of each Practice Period, they sat a seven day sesshin—twelve to fourteen hours a day for seven straight days, during which they took their meager meals in the zendo, and slept on their cushions. In fifteen years, Reb, Yvonne, Lew, and the other senior students who'd kept the daily schedule had each sat zazen for at least 10,000 to 15,000 hours. And yet, by any common-sense standard, the most seasoned meditators at Zen Center repeatedly flunked simple tests of self-awareness. "I wonder," wrote a former Zen Center student in a letter to Yvonne in 1987, "if in some cases doing zazen doesn't augment or aggravate the dissociative process—as if in some way it cauterizes the personality and seals it off, encapsulates it, widens the breach between heart and mind.

I never entered a monastery as a full-time live-in monk, which many people consider the only way to practice what Dōgen preached. But this would ignore the fact that Dōgen taught a number of lay students throughout his life and, indeed, recommended zazen as a daily practice not only for those who live in monasteries but also to anyone interested in self-discovery.

The best way to do this is by putting these teachings into practice in our daily lives. Experience always goes beyond ideas. Tenth-century Vietnamese master Thiên Hôi told his students, “Be diligent in order to attain the state of no birth and no death.” One student asked, “Where can we touch the world of no birth and no death?” and he responded, “Right here in the world of birth and death.” To touch the water, you have to touch the waves. If you touch birth and death deeply, you touch the world of no birth and no death.

The trouble with our social life is that we are always seeking for a reward, and more frequently for one enormously out of proportion to the merit of the deed itself. When this is not forthcoming, we are dissatisfied, and this dissatisfaction causes all sorts of trouble in our daily walk of life.

Even in trying to become an expert athlete, daily training involving a great deal of self-denial and asceticism is absolutely needed.

Much of this picture of Zen derives from portrayals found in such normative texts of the tradition as the lamp anthologies (Ch. teng-lu), huge collections of the hagiographies and basic instructions of hundreds of masters in the various lineages of Zen. But such texts were never intended to serve as guides to religious practice or as records of daily practice; they were instead mythology and hagiography, which offered the student an idealized paradigm of the Zen spiritual experience. Many scholars of Zen have mistakenly taken these lamp anthologies at face value as historical documents and presumed that they provide an accurate account of how Zen monks of the premodern era pursued their religious vocations. They do not.

If you fuss over black and white, you miss out on the beauty of gray.

But negative comments should quickly be forgotten. This can be done by skillfully “paying no attention.” The Zen mind is said to be “unmoved even when the eight winds blow.” We strive to remain unperturbed, no matter the situation—and even to be calm and good-humored.

Zen has its origin in India and was introduced to China where it united with the thought of Lao-tsu and the realistically oriented world outlook of the Chinese, stressing as it does the value of human labor. Zen further developed by incorporating the Confucian emphasis on etiquette and culture, reaching its zenith in the period from the Tang through the Sung dynasty (618–1279). It was transmitted to Japan in the Kamakura period (1185–1336) where it not only contributed to the disciplining of the spirit of the emotionally prone Japanese people but also deeply influenced the military and fine arts as well as daily life in general.

In the hot climate of South Asia both food and clothing are no problem, since one can sleep almost naked under the trees and sustain oneself by eating wild fruit. In the severe climate of North Asia this is impossible. As the priests in South Asia do not do any manual labor, they are able to make do with only one meal a day, but in China this system is impossible. Even in the collection of regulations of the Zen sect written in the Tang dynasty (618–907) by the Chinese Zen master Pai-chang, provision is made for two daily meals: breakfast, consisting of rice gruel, and lunch, consisting of vegetables and rice. Later on, even an evening meal known as yaku seki (baked sone) came to be tacitly permitted.