Tag: zen, zen-buddhism

[E]ven in getting the wonderful things we long for, we tend to live in want of something more[.]

We have all sorts of stories about heaven and hell, about oblivion and nothingness, about ‘coming back,’ and so on. But they are all stories.

Belief may serve as a useful stopgap measure in the absence of actual experience, but once you see … [it] becomes unnecessary.

There’s nothing you can find – … nothing you can even imagine – that doesn’t originate, develop, or exist in relation to other things.

We imagine that things come into existence, endure for a while, and then pass out of existence

To forget the self is to remember that we don’t exist alone, but in relation to other people, to other creatures, to the planet, and to the universe.

[F]ocus not on ourselves as a force in charge of the manipulation of others, but on how our lives interpenetrate those of others – and … all creatures of a dynamic universe.

Belief is at best an educated, informed conjecture about Reality.

Good and bad aren’t absolutes. They are beliefs, judgements, ideas based on limited knowledge as well as on the inclinations of our minds.

Good times come and go. And bad times do the same.

[A] book is not merely a book, it is the sun as well.

[W]e have endless opportunities to forget the self – in planting a tree for future generations; in creating a poem, a meal, a vessel of clay;