Dōgen Quotes

Uchiyama Rōshi helped me a great deal in not allowing me to use zazen as an escape. He said, “You must know that behind zazen are the teachings of Buddhism, and behind them, your own life experience.” These words went a long way in clarifying for me a passage in the Shōbō-genzō: Genjō Kōan (Actualizing the Koan): “To study Buddhism is to study the Self.

It is taught that all buddhas in the past, present, and future leave the household and attain the way. The twenty-eight ancestors in India and the six early ancestors in China who transmitted the Buddha's mind seal were all monks. They are distinguished in the three realms by strictly observing the precepts. Thus precepts are primary for practicing Zen in pursuit of the way. How can one become a buddha ancestor without becoming free from faults and preventing wrongdoing?

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. (From 'Fukan zazengi')

Shōbō-genzō: Genjō Kōan (Actualizing the Koan):

When other sects speak well of Zen, the first thing that they praise is its poverty.

No one should torment people or break their hearts.

Uchiyama Rōshi subtitled his interpretive translation and commentary of this important work Finsei Ryōri no Hon, or How to Cook Your Life. The word ryōri, the meaning of which to be sure includes the cooking and preparation of food, also has broader connotations. Ryōri may also be used in the sense of conducting or handling one’s affairs. The implication of this title is that the author tells us how we should go about conducting our lives and treating everything

There is a simple way to become a buddha: When you refrain from unwholesome actions, are not attached to birth and death, and are compassionate toward all sentient beings, respectful to seniors and kind to juniors, not excluding or desiring anything, with no thoughts or worries, you will be called a buddha. Seek nothing else.

Nothing can be gained by extensive study and wide reading. Give them up immediately.

Even when you give a particle of dust, you should rejoice in your own act because you authentically transmit the merit of all buddhas and begin to practice an act of a bodhisattva.

If there are fish that would swim or birds that would fly only after investigating the entire ocean or sky, they would find neither path nor place.

We always attach ourselves to something that we think relatively better or more valuable than other things, and we are blinded to real life by that. We must purify our system of value. For living out our own life, we must first of all clarify absolute value. Many people live for fulfillment of their desires. These people are like chickens at a poultry farm. I feel sorry for the chickens that just eat nutritious feed day and night and lay as many eggs as possible. This is all that they do in their lives. Chicken raisers keep the light on in the chicken coop all night to keep the chickens producing eggs efficiently. They calculate how many eggs can be laid by one chicken, and they kill the chickens when they become old.

If you attain unsurpassable, complete enlightenment, all sentient beings also attain it. The reason is that all sentient beings are aspects of enlightenment.

Magnanimous Mind61 is like a mountain, stable and impartial. Exemplifying the ocean, it is tolerant and views everything from the broadest perspective. Having a Magnanimous Mind means being without prejudice and refusing to take sides.

Only those who have the great capacity of genuine trust can enter this realm [the realm of the buddhas]. Those who have no trust are unable to accept it, however much they hear it.