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If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?

Dogen

Let your heart go out and abide in things. Let things return and abide in your heart.
DOGEN

Abide Heart Return Speech Thing
To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by the ten thousand things.
DOGEN

Earth Enlight Religion Self Sell Study Thing
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 study Buddhism is to study ourselves. To study ourselves is to forget ourselves.
DOGEN

Buddhism Buddhist Life Ourselves Space Study
Your body is like a dew-drop on the morning grass, your life is as brief as a flash of lightning. Momentary and vain, it is lost in a moment.
DOGEN

Cvain Dew Flash Lightning Lost Moment Momentary Morning
In the mundane, nothing is sacred. In sacredness, nothing is mundane.
DOGEN

Mundane Nothing Sacred Sacredness
Be moderate in eating and drinking. Mindful of the passing of time, engage yourself in zazen as though saving your head from fire.
DOGEN

Eat Engage Fire Head Moderate Pass People Save Saving
Just practice good, do good for others, without thinking of making yourself known so that you may gain reward. Really bring benefit to others, gaining nothing for yourself. This is the primary requisite for breaking free of attachments to the Self.
DOGEN

Attachment Gain Make Practice Reward Self Thinking Yourself
A flower falls, even though we love it; and a weed grows, even though we do not love it.
DOGEN

Buddhist Flower Grow Love War Weed
A zen master’s life is one continuous mistake.
DOGEN

Continue Life Master Mistake People
Do not travel to other dusty lands, forsaking your own sitting place; if you cannot find the truth where you are now, you will never find it.
DOGEN

Dusty Land never Place Sitting Travel Truth
If you want to see things just as they are, then you yourself must practice just as you are.
DOGEN

Just Practice See Thing Want
One must be deeply aware of the impermanence of the world.
DOGEN

Aware Deeply Impermanence World
What is reality? An icicle forming in fire.
DOGEN

Fire Form Reality
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
To study the Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self.
DOGEN

Forget Self Study Way

If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?

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If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?

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