Sublime

You must be true to your own way until at last you actually come to the point where you see it is necessary to forget all about yourself.

If an artist becomes too idealistic, he will commit suicide, because between his ideal and his actual ability there is a great gap. Because there is no bridge long enough to go across the gap, he will begin to despair. That is the usual spiritual way. But our spiritual way is not so idealistic.

When you are practicing zazen, do not try to stop your thinking. Let it stop by itself. If something comes into your mind, let it come in, and let it go out. It will not stay long. When you try to stop your thinking, it means you are bothered by it. Do not be bothered by anything.

For an American, admitting to such total ignorance is anathema. We aim to know everything. We’re socialized to think that not knowing is stupid and shameful. But in traditions like Zen, “don’t know mind” refers to a way of thinking that’s free from rigid concepts, as clear and fluid as air.

how completely Suzuki Roshi worked at things, how much care he took with the details. He took care of details I didn’t even notice. He put vastly more energy into things than I ever would have. He did not cut corners. He did not decide he didn’t have time.

Sometimes I think my role as a Zen teacher comes down to being the one person in the room who says, “I don’t know,” when everyone else is sure they know what to do—or more often than not, sure they know what somebody else should be doing.

All that the Tathagata has transmitted to you, you must carefully and skillfully study, observe, practice, and verify for yourselves in order to transmit it to future generations. Living and practicing the Way should continue to assure the peace, joy, and happiness of all beings.

A man was working on the koan “No” for some years. He noticed how compulsive the mind can be, and for him, to bring his mind back to the koan, over and over again, many times a minute if necessary, was to gain an enlightenment at the simplest and most fundamental level—to survive the debris of the mind. It can be consoling to discover that you don’

If you leave a trace of your thinking on your activity, you will be attached to the trace. For instance, you may say, “This is what I have done!” But actually it is not so. In your recollection you may say, “I did such and such a thing in some certain way,” but actually that is never exactly what happened. When you think in this way you limit the a