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CHOSHA’S STOP ILLUSORY THINKING
Before life there is death, before death there is life. In life there is death, in death there is life, a worm cut in two, each half moves, in each a new worm or is there one worm. This I ask you, but answer or no answer both are full of Buddha nature. A reflection…
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TEN FOLD PATH (PT. 2)
6. Ox and man walk the dusty path to the small hut sit along the fence and look deeply into the bottomless night sky as they have for the endless journey 埃だらけの道をたどって 男と牛は小屋をめざす 塀にもたれて腰かけ 果てのない夜空を見つめる 終わりのない旅路で いつもそうしてきたように 7. Each morning the man senses the ox is in the pen, the ox smells the man in…
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TOKUSAN SPEAKS OF TEACHERS 鐵笛倒吹 二十
Why do you seek old Masters, they have no special gift. Your lineage is the surface of the sea never still, all waves. Your teacher has no answers, his silence instructs close your ears and listen, is that his breath you hear or only your own? In is out, out is in depending on where…
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THE REAL WAY 碧巌録 二
Heed Joshu’s words the real way is not difficult look within the mind come across words, thoughts and cast them over the edge into the abyss. Continue searching until no words or thoughts remain and you are left with mu. Then carry mu to the precipice and cast it, too, into the abyss make your…
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RETREAT
At meals they sit elbow to elbow in silence, on the mat shoulder to shoulder staring into the wall. You know that most are searching deep in the silence and they grow sad, finding, the question is always just beyond grasp. She stays behind, sits alone on her mat calm in the interbeing.
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RHINOCEROS
If I ask you to bring me an atom of oxygen, where will you search for it, how will you isolate it, so that you have captured a single atom that you can bring in response to my request? It may take some time and great effort to satisfy my desire. Or you may simply…
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UNKO SENDS CLOTHES 鐵笛倒吹 七十八
If I receive warm under robes to ease my winter meditation I will refuse them. If you ask me why, I will say I was born with such robes as I need. If you ask what I wore before birth I shall remain silent. In the deepest winter there is no chill that can reach…
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MOMENT
If you are patient and do not look for it, there is a still moment in each day when nothing at all happens, when the silence without demands a silence within, when thoughts evaporate like the mist of an early morning dew, when you have precisely enough and cannot imagine needing more, when where you…
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SEKITO’S ASK THE PILLAR 正法眼蔵 四十一
If you want an answer do not ask a question – your answer cannot be mine nor can mine be yours. Instead, ask the stone wall, it has nothing to say and in its perfect silence all questions are asked and all answers are found. A reflection on Case 41 of the Shobogenzo, Dogen’s True…
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A MONK IN MEDITATION 鐵笛倒吹 七十語
A man may own may volumes of great knowledge and never have time to read. An illiterate may take such books and fashion a stool on which to sit in meditation. Which of these is truly wise which the greatest fool. Wipe your mouth with this page at the conclusion of the meal. A reflection…
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an old writer and his words 