Japan

In our everyday life we are usually trying to do something, trying to change something into something else, or trying to attain something. Just this trying is already in itself an expression of our true nature. The meaning lies in the effort itself. We should find out the meaning of our effort before we attain something. So Dogen said, “We should

It’s like one of those Greek tragedy masks in a textbook that’s half one idea and half the opposite. Light and dark. Hope and despair. Laughter and sadness. Trust and loneliness.

The two of them didn’t know it at the time, but this was the only truly complete place in the entire world. Totally isolated, yet the one place not tainted with loneliness.

It actually made me sad. It was the same feeling you get at a train station, or in a hospital, or on the street, when you stop a safe distance away from someone who can’t seem to help but talk and talk, whether or not anyone is there to listen. Watching Makiko carry on like that, that’s how I felt. It’s not like I didn’t care about Makiko or what

Notice the feeling, recognize it for what it is, take a deep breath, and shift your energies to that which needs doing.