An ancient buddha said, “Mountains are mountains; waters are waters.” These words do not mean mountains are mountains; they mean mountains are mountains.
DOGENPrefer to be defeated in the presence of the wise than to excel among fools.
More Dogen Quotes
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Enlightenment is intimacy with all things.
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Students today should live fully every moment of time. This dew-like life fades away; time speeds swiftly. In this short life of ours, avoid involvement in superfluous things and just study the Way.
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To study the Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self.
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Nothing in the entire universe is hidden.
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I asked, “What are words?” The tenzo said, “One, two, three, four, five.” I asked again, “What is practice?” “Nothing in the entire universe is hidden.”
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When we discover that the truth is already in us, we are all at once our original selves.
DOGEN -
Do not be amazed by the true dragon.
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Cease from practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words, and following after speech.
DOGEN -
A flower falls, even though we love it; and a weed grows, even though we do not love it.
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If he cannot stop the mind that seeks after fame and profit, he will spend his life without finding peace.
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Those who seek the easy way do not seek the true way.
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The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in one dewdrop on the grass.
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Since it is the practice of enlightenment, that practice has no beginning and since it is enlightenment within the practice, that realization has no end.
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Coming, going, the waterbirds, don’t leave a trace, don’t follow a path.
DOGEN -
There are mountains hidden in mountains. There are mountains hidden in hiddenness. This is complete understanding.
DOGEN -
If you do not get it from yourself, where will you go for it?
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In doing zazen it is desirable to have a quiet room. You should be temperate in eating and drinking, forsaking all delusive relationships. Setting everything aside, think of neither good nor evil, right nor wrong. Thus having stopped the various functions of your mind, five up even the idea of becoming a Buddha.
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A fool sees himself as another, but a wise man sees others as himself.
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Do not doubt that mountains walk simply because they may not appear to walk like humans.
DOGEN -
Do not miss the opportunity of offering even a single drop into the ocean of merit or a grain atop the mountain of the roots of beneficial activity.
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Why abandon a seat in your own home to wander in vain through dusty regions of another land? If you make one false step, you miss what is right before your eyes.
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If you want to travel the Way of Buddhas and Zen masters, then expect nothing, seek nothing, and grasp nothing.
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Sitting is the gateway of truth to total liberation.
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Look for Buddha outside your own mind, and Buddha becomes the devil.
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Emptiness is bound to bloom, like hundreds of grasses blossoming.
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People who truly follow the Way would do well to conceal the fact that they are Buddhists.
DOGEN