Zen tings

But when your practice deepens and it begins to dawn on you that all your thoughts are just thoughts, even that most basic of thoughts, the idea that your thoughts are generated by something called “self,” becomes questionable and finally dissolves away.

In fact, you don’t get it from anything. You don’t need to get it. You already have it. You’re inseparable from it. You only need to just see.

If you think Zen is something lofty and esoteric, the master will give you a shout or slap for an answer. If you think it is abstract, you’ll be told it’s three pounds of flax or the oak tree in the garden. If you think it is beyond words and abstractions, the master may quote the sutras or a poem by Han Shan. If you think Zen is nothing but our

This is the only form of knowledge cultivated by a bodhisattva. The knowledge of dharmas turns out to be no knowledge, and the knowledge of no knowledge turns out to be the only knowledge worth knowing.

Do what you do as well as you possibly can. That’s Buddhist morality.

In the Chungnan Mountains south of Sian, I once met a Buddhist master who had founded four Buddhist colleges before finally retiring to spend her last years in a mountain hut. She told me in all seriousness that mantras were taught to humans by beings from another world. No doubt their authors were from another world. At the very least, it was a

Now I understand that what is most critical is our objective for living. We must clarify and see without any doubt that living a truly human life is our highest value.