Although seeing a large golden Buddha in a large golden Buddha is easier, when you see a large golden Buddha in a blade of grass, your joy will be something special. So we need to practice respect for things with great effort.

I get only one chance to live this life, and I’d love not to make a mess of it.

are we practicing just to express this limitless being, or because we think we’re not a limitless being? And once we discover we are a limitless being, will we continue practicing? Well, of course. That’s what limitless beings do. This is Dogen Zenji’s practice-enlightenment, practice-realization. This practice itself expresses the limitlessness

Our practice is to help people, and to help people, we find out how to practice our way in each moment.

And as I continued to practice and to talk with other students of the buddha dharma, I found that many people share the conditioning that leads us to think that there’s something wrong with us. If we could only get, do, or be something more, then we would be all right. It’s so easy for us to get the idea that there’s something wrong with us. And

If we are a little more alert, we can catch it before it’s done instead of regretting it after it’s done. If we are a little more alert, we can see the possibility of something wholesome that we can do and decide to do it.

We are very skillful. We can hold both an extremely elevated view of self and an extremely negative view of self at the same time. Neither one is accurate.

What is the effort that daffodils make in order to bloom?

How we actually live this precious life we have been given is the most important point. Although we may fervently wish to end all pain in the world, as many before us have wished, the best we may be able to do is not add to it.