Sublime

While not a samurai, Jigoro trained in martial arts and became well known for his meticulous recording of the jujutsu techniques he deemed most effective. He described his work as “keeping what I felt should be kept, and discarding what I felt should be discarded.”

He started, “One, two, three . . .” He enjoyed the counting. There was nothing down to earth about it. The vastness of the galaxy was in each star. There were too many stars to count, and yet the count went on like a prayer. The next day he kept repeating to himself, “Count the stars in the sky.” As he drove and ate and talked to his family, he kep

Ryokan,

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’

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 w

The book was entitled Three Pillars of Zen, by Philip Kapleau.

Zen Master Linji

Soft, humble, and dark are the primary forms and closer to the Way. Hence, sages return to the original: a block of wood.