Eihei Dogen Zenji Quotes

If you try to examine your life analytically, asking yourself who you are, finally you will realize that there is something you cannot reach. You don't know what it is, but you feel the presence of something you want to connect with. This is sometimes called the absolute. Buddha and Dogen Zenji say true self. Christians say God. ~ Dainin Katagiri

In the beginner's mind there is no thought, "I have attained something." All self-centered thoughts limit our vast mind. When we have no thought of achievement, no thought of self, we are true beginners. Then we can really learn something. The beginner's mind is the mind of compassion. When our mind is compassionate, it is boundless. Dogen-zenji, the founder of our school, always emphasized how important it is to resume our boundless original mind. Then we are always true to ourselves, in sympathy with all beings, and can actually practice. ~ Shunryu Suzuki

The coming and going of birth and death is a painting. Unsurpassed enlightenment is a painting. The entire phenomenal universe and the empty sky are nothing but a painting. ~ Dogen

If you cannot find the truth within yourself, where else do you expect to find it? ~ Dogen

The color of the mountains is Buddha's body; the sound of running water is his great speech. ~ Dogen

When mountains and waters are painted, blue, green, and red paints are used, strange rocks and wondrous stones are used, the four jewels and the seven treasures are used. Rice-cakes are painted in the same manner. When a person is painted, the four great elements and five skandhas are used. ~ Dogen

There is a simple way to become 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 designing thoughts or worries, you will be called a buddha. Do not seek anything else. ~ Dogen

Do not follow the ideas of others, but learn to listen to the voice within yourself. Your body and mind will become clear and you will realize the unity of all things. ~ Dogen

Realization doesn't destroy the individual any more than the reflection of the moon breaks a drop of water. A drop of water can reflect the whole sky. ~ Dogen

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. ~ Dogen

Because monks come from the midst of purity, they consider as good and pure what does not arouse desire among other people. ~ Dogen

A zen master's life is one continuous mistake. ~ Dogen

In a snowfall that covers the winter grass a white heron uses his own whiteness to disappear. ~ Dogen

Students today should live fully every moment of time. This dew-like life fades away; time speeds swiftly. In this short life of ours, avoid involvement in superfluous things and just study the Way. ~ Dogen

Practice and enlightenment are not two. ~ Dogen

Meditation begins now, right here. It can't begin someplace else or at some other time. To paraphrase the great Zen master Dogen, "If you want to practice awareness, then practice awareness without delay." If you wish to know a mind that is tranquil and clear, sane and peaceful, you must take it up now. If you wish to free yourself from the frantic television mind that runs our lives, begin with the intention to be present now.

Nobody can bring awareness to your life but you.

Meditation is not a self-help program--a way to better ourselves so we can get what we want. Nor is it a way to relax before jumping back into busyness. It's not something to do once in awhile, either, whenever you happen to feel like it.

Instead, meditation is a practice that saturates your life and in time can be brought into every activity. It is the transformation of mind from bondage to freedom.

In practicing meditation, we go nowhere other than right here where we now stand, where we now sit, where we now live and breathe. In meditation we return to where we already are--this shifting, changing ever-present now.

If you wish to take up meditation, it must be now or never. ~ Steve Hagen

Look for Buddha outside your own mind,
and Buddha becomes the devil. ~ Dogen

Studying the Buddha way is studying oneself. Studying oneself is forgetting oneself. Forgetting oneself is being enlightened by all things. Being enlightened by all things is to shed the body-mind of oneself, and those of others. No trace of enlightenment remains, and this traceless enlightenment continues endlessly. ~ Dogen

There are myriads of forms and hundreds of grasses throughout the entire earth, yet each grass and each form itself is the entire earth. ~ Dogen

If you come across an insane person who's talking gibberish, you can't make any sense of it at all and that would be one way that enlightenment is different. If you read Dogen, a lot of his stuff is very strange and is coming from a different place than what we're used to, but at the same time, it's not senseless ramblings and that's part of what attracted me to Dogen. I didn't get it, but it was sane. It's not some guy raving about UFO's or Moses living in his bathtub, it's was actually something sane that I just didn't get, if that makes sense? ~ Brad Warner

To study Buddhism is to study ourselves. To study ourselves is to forget ourselves. ~ Dogen

In the mundane, nothing is sacred. In sacredness, nothing is mundane. ~ Dogen

If we look at the world with a deluded body and mind, we will think that our self is permanent. But if we practice correctly and return to our true self, we will realize that nothing is permanent ~ Dogen

When a buddha is painted, not only a clay altar or lump of earth is used, but the thirty-two marks, a blade of grass, and the cultivation of wisdom for incalculable eons are used. As a Buddha has been painted on a single scroll in this way, all buddhas are painted buddhas, and all painted buddhas are actual buddhas. ~ Dogen

184. "Focus your mind on one thing, absorb the old examples, study the actions of the masters- penetrate deeply into a single form of practice." ~ ~ Dogen

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

If you are unable to find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it? ~ Dogen

Do not miss the opportunity of offering even a single drop into the ocean of merit or a grain atop the mountain of the roots of beneficial activity. ~ Dogen

Those who practice know whether realization is attained or not, just as those who drink water know whether it is hot or cold ~ Dogen

The one and only thing required is to free oneself from the bondage of mind and body alike, putting the Buddha's own seal upon yourself. If you do this as you sit in ecstatic meditation, the whole universe itself scattered through the infinity of space turns into enlightenment. This is what I mean by the Buddha's seal. ~ Dogen

Do not doubt that mountains walk simply because they may not appear to walk like humans. ~ Dogen

Do not view mountains from the scale of human thought ~ Dogen

Refraining from all evil, not clinging to birth and death, working in deep compassion for all sentient beings, respecting those over you and pitying those below you, without any detesting or desiring, worrying or lamentation - this is what is called Buddha. Do not search beyond it. ~ Dogen

I asked, "What are words?" The tenzo said, "One, two, three, four, five." I asked again, "What is practice?" "Nothing in the entire universe is hidden." ~ Dogen

In a mind clear as still water, even the waves, breaking, are reflecting its light. ~ Dogen

What is the way of the Buddha? It is to study the self. What is the study of the self? It is to forget oneself. To forget oneself is to enlightened by everything in the world. ~ Dogen

Zazen is an activity that is an extension of the universe. Zazen is not the life of an individual, it's the universe that's breathing. ~ Dogen

Do not arouse disdainful mind when you prepare a broth of wild grasses; do not arouse joyful mind when you prepare a fine cream soup. ~ Dogen

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