You should study not only that you become a mother when your child is born, but also that you become a child. - Dōgen

The many rivers which flow into the ocean become the one taste of the ocean; when they flow into the pure ocean of the dharma there are no such distinctions as delicacies or plain food, there is just one taste, and it is the buddhadharma, the world itself as it is. In cultivating the germ of aspiration to live out the Way, as well as in practicing the dharma, delicious and ordinary tastes are the same and not two. There is an old saying, “The mouth of a monk is like an oven.”45 Remember this well.

Value the person you are right now, and the moments they are creating. Even if you become a Buddha in the future, you of the present will never be seen. It is just one time, one direction. If we think about it, what seems to be just an ordinary person's petty realm today is indeed very precious.

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.