Dogen
Dogen
Dōgen Zenji, also known as Dōgen Kigen, Eihei Dōgen, Koso Joyo Daishi, or Bussho Dento Kokushi, was a Japanese Buddhist priest, writer, poet, philosopher, and founder of the Sōtō school of Zen in Japan. Originally ordained as a monk in the Tendai School in Kyoto, he was ultimately dissatisfied with its teaching and traveled to China to seek out what he believed to be a more authentic Buddhism. He remained there for five years, finally training under Tiantong Rujing, an...
eye home land
Why abandon a seat in your own home to wander in vain through dusty regions of another land? If you make one false step, you miss what is right before your eyes.
earth grass form
There are myriads of forms and hundreds of grasses throughout the entire earth, yet each grass and each form itself is the entire earth.
mean water mountain
An ancient buddha said, “Mountains are mountains; waters are waters.” These words do not mean mountains are mountains; they mean mountains are mountains.
reality fire icicles
What is reality? An icicle forming in fire.
practice enlightenment ends
There is no beginning to practice nor end to enlightenment; There is no beginning to enlightenment nor end to practice.
color sky blue
The true person is Not anyone in particular; But like the deep blue color Of the limitless sky, It is everyone, Everywhere in the world.
wall heart practice
In the assemblies of the enlightened ones there have been many cases of mastering the Way bringing forth the heart of plants and trees; this is what awakening the mind for enlightenment is like. The fifth patriarch of Zen was once a pine-planting wayfarer; Rinzai worked on planting cedars and pines on Mount Obaku. . . . Working with plants, trees, fences and walls, if they practice sincerely they will attain enlightenment.
morning dew body
Your body is like a dew-drop on the morning grass, your life is as brief as a flash of lightning. Momentary and vain, it is lost in a moment.
ocean fall moon
Through one word, or seven words, or three times five, even if you investigate thoroughly myriad forms, nothing can be depended upon. Night advances, the moon glows and falls into the ocean. The black dragon jewel you have been searching for, is everywhere.
world impermanence
One must be deeply aware of the impermanence of the world.
mean space meditation
The one and only thing required is to free oneself from the bondage of mind and body alike, putting the Buddha's own seal upon yourself. If you do this as you sit in ecstatic meditation, the whole universe itself scattered through the infinity of space turns into enlightenment. This is what I mean by the Buddha's seal.
self forever mind
To study the Way is to study the Self. To study the Self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things of the universe. To be enlightened by all things of the universe is to cast off the body and mind of the self as well as those of others. Even the traces of enlightenment are wiped out, and life with traceless enlightenment goes on forever and ever
compassion enlightenment intimacy
Enlightenment is intimacy with all things.
truth sitting gateways
Sitting is the gateway of truth to total liberation.