Sublime

from the simple lifestyles of the monks who lived a life of wabi, referred to as wabizumai. ( Wabi here means solitary and simple and zumai being a verb extension meaning to live.)

Teishin,

The excellent horse, according to the sutra,1 moves before the whip even touches its back; just the shadow of the whip or the slightest sound from the driver is enough to make the horse move. The good horse runs at the lightest touch of the whip on its back. The poor horse doesn’t go until it feels pain, and the very bad horse doesn’t budge until

Rinzai’s radical use of buji tells us that Zen is no “thing” whatsoever. In his talk, he tries to cut off any notion we may have of what there is to do or what there is to accomplish. He spells out all the traps that his monks are likely to fall into—his way of flushing out their “secret practices.” Today, Rinzai is famous for answering questions

The vast body of Mahayana doctrine arose not so much to satisfy intellectual curiosity as to deal with the practical psychological problems encountered in following the Buddha’s way. Certainly the treatment of these problems is highly scholastic, and the intellectual level of the Mahayana texts is very lofty. But the consistent aim is to bring

In Japan we have the phrase shoshin, which means “beginner’s mind.” The goal of practice is always to keep our beginner’s mind.