Quotes About D?gen

Where we are right now has nothing to do with human time. The word now is meaningless. What we call a year is a tiny framework in a huge sea of time. We are engulfed." I lifted my arms. No words came, only images of the Japanese gardens I had once visited: Saih?-ji, Kinkaku-ji, Ry?an-ji. But this place was the font. The whole world was this, embedded in this, had issued from this. It was a place where, as D?gen said, being and nonbeing are rolled together

When D?gen says in Sh?b?genz? Sh?ji (Life and Death) that "life and death is Buddha's Life," he means our life in samsara is nothing other than nirvana.

I never entered a monastery as a full-time live-in monk, which many people consider the only way to practice what D?gen preached. But this would ignore the fact that D?gen taught a number of lay students throughout his life and, indeed, recommended zazen as a daily practice not only for those who live in monasteries but also to anyone interested in self-discovery.

D?gen's big question when he was a young monk was this: If Buddhism teaches that we're all perfect just as we are — and it does teach that — then why do we have to undergo training? A whole lot of Sh?b?genz? is D?gen's attempt to answer that question.

Tenzo Ky?kun, or as I have entitled it in English, Instructions for the Zen Cook, was written over a period of years by Eihei D?gen Zenji (1200–1253), who was intimately familiar with both the Rinzai and S?t? schools of Zen, and finally completed in 1237. More specifically, it was written for D?gen's immediate disciples living with him in a monastery in medieval Japan.

I was also told that the Eihei Daishingi (Regulations for Eiheiji Monastery), of which the Tenzo Ky?kun is the first chapter, was one of the easier works of D?gen, since it deals with practical matters.

Whether you are the head of a temple, a senior monk or other officer, or simply an ordinary monk, do not forget the attitude behind living out your life with joy, having the deep concern of a parent, and carrying out all your activities with magnanimity. Written by D?gen in the spring of 1237 at K?sh?-ji for followers of the Way in succeeding generations.