Therefore, you must stop comprehending the conduct of investigating words and chasing discourses. You must learn to step backward to turn your light … - Dōgen

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Therefore, you must stop comprehending the conduct of investigating words and chasing discourses. You must learn to step backward to turn your light around to reflect on yourself. Mind and body will naturally fall away and your original face will manifest itself. If you wish to attain suchness, devote yourself to suchness at once.

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About Dōgen

Dōgen (道元; also Dōgen Kigen 道元希玄, Eihei Dōgen 永平道元, titled as Dōgen Zenji [Zen Master Dōgen] 道元禅師) (19 January 1200 – 22 September 1253) was a Japanese Zen Buddhist priest, writer, poet, philosopher born in Kyōto, and the founder of the Sōtō school of Zen in Japan.

Biography information from Wikiquote

Also Known As

Pen Names: 高祖
Alternative Names: Dōgen Zenji Dōgen Kigen Eihei Dōgen Dougen

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Additional quotes by Dōgen

Students of the Way must not study Buddhism for the sake of themselves. They must study Buddhism only for the sake of Buddhism. The key to this is to renounce both body and mind without holding anything back and to offer them to the great sea of Buddhism.

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.

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When I have to struggle seeking after something, When I feel loneliness in helpless solitude, When I am in despair of myself — These are all thoughts of ourselves. Leave everything to zazen, letting go of thought, Or to single-minded chanting of the sound that sees the -world. At this time, even though we don't know it consciously Suddenly, whatever has happened The living reality of the self that is only the self is there, Just as the big sky is always the big sky.

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