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When one first seeks the truth, one separates oneself from it.

Dogen

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.
DOGEN

Abandon Another Eye Home Land Region Seat Wander
If he cannot stop the mind that seeks after fame and profit, he will spend his life without finding peace.
DOGEN

Discipline Finding Life Mind Peace Profit Seek Stop
Look for Buddha outside your own mind, and Buddha becomes the devil.
DOGEN

Become Buddha Devil Look Mind Outside
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.
DOGEN

Delusive Drink Eat Forsake Idea Quite Relationship Room Temepearte Thing
The coming and going of birth and death is a painting. Unsurpassed enlightenment is a painting. The entire phenomenal universe and the empty sky are nothing but a painting.
DOGEN

Birth Come Enlightenment Go Painting Sky Unsurpassed
Just as parents care for their children, you should bear in mind the whole universe.
DOGEN

Bear Children Mind Parents Universe Whole
We must always be disturbed by the truth.
DOGEN

Always Disturbed Must Truth
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.
DOGEN

Actually Bebnefically Drop Mountain Ocean Opportunity Root Single
Yet you must not cling to the words of the old sages either; they, too, may not be right. Even if you believe them, you should be alert so that, in the event that something superior comes along, you may follow that.
DOGEN

Alert Believe Either Events Right Sage Word
To escape from the world means that one’s mind is not concerned with the opinions of the world.
DOGEN

Concentrate Mean Mind Opinion World
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.”
DOGEN

Ask Cooking Entire Hidden Nothing Practice Said Two Universe Word
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.
DOGEN

Activity Breathing Epron Extension Individual People Universe
Enlightenment is intimacy with all things.
DOGEN

Buddhist Compassion Enlightenment Thing
Prefer to be defeated in the presence of the wise than to excel among fools.
DOGEN

Among Defeated Excel Fool Prefer Wise
Cease from practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words, and following after speech.
DOGEN

Cease Follow Intellectual Practice Speech Understanding Word
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.
DOGEN

Dew Discipline Every Fully Life Moment Short Student Time

When one first seeks the truth, one separates oneself from it.

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When one first seeks the truth, one separates oneself from it.

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