Quotes About Practice

It is, says Professor Mathews, only by continued, strenuous efforts, repeated again and again, day after day, week after week, and month after month, that the ability can be acquired to fasten the mind to one subject, however abstract or knotty, to the exclusion of everything else.

Quit fearing things that may never happen, just as you would quit any bad practise which has caused you suffering. Fill your mind with courage, hope, and confidence.

He had lots of deaths, but that was OK, games were like that, you died a lot until you got the hang of it

If you can't do it twice, you can't do it at all.

By nature, men are nearly alike; by practice, they get to be wide apart.

The Master said, "To study, and then in a timely fashion to practice what you have learned—is this not satisfying? To have companions arrive from afar—is this not a joy? To remain unrecognized by others and yet remain free of resentment—is this not the mark of the gentleman?" (Analects 1.1)

Learn advidly. Question it repeatedly. Analyze it carefully. Then put what you have learned into practice intelligently.

The Master said, I have not seen a person who loved virtue, or one who hated what was not virtuous. He who loved virtue, would esteem nothing above it. He who hated what is not virtuous, would practice virtue in such a way that he would not allow anything that is not virtuous to approach his person. Is any one able for one day to apply his strength to virtue? I have not seen the case in which his strength would be insufficient. Should there possibly be any such case, I have not seen it.

Is it not indeed a pleasure to acquire knowledge and constantly to exercise oneself therein?

Practicing archery is like practicing to be a Gentleman. When you miss the bulls-eye, you look for the error in yourself.

This stuff only works in practice. In theory, it's a mess.

Part of the problem with just empathy with professed goals is that empathy doesn't do us anything. We've had lots of empathy; we've had lots of sympathy, but we feel that for too long our leaders have viewed politics as the art of the possible. And the challenge now is to practice politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible possible." I

Part of the problem with just empathy with professed goals is that empathy doesn't do us anything. We've had lots of empathy; we've had lots of sympathy, but we feel that for too long our leaders have viewed politics as the art of the possible. And the challenge now is to practice politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible possible.

It's not about right belief; it's about right practice.

The best way to learn is through experience. To continue to improve, add to your experience, take small steps, and do it every day.

Focus your mind on one thing, absorb the old examples, study the actions of the masters- penetrate deeply into a single form of practice.

Dogen's teaching: We practice because we do not yet know who or what we are. But as a result of many causes, including the suffering we experience and the longing engendered by that suffering, we aspire to know. That aspiration leads many people to begin the practice of zazen. Dogen expressed this beautifully when he said, "Wisdom is seeking wisdom." Perhaps we might paraphrase and say that wholeness is seeking wholeness, self is seeking self.

So our practice is not to eliminate our delusion, but to see or to become aware of the fact that we are deluded. Just become aware of it and let go of it. Do not be pulled by the delusions.

Clarifying the Way means that we determine the point we should aim at throughout our lives, based on the self that is only the self and life that is only life. This is the sole great matter, and this is what completing the sole great matter of one's life means. True practice begins at this point.

Uchiyama R?shi helped me a great deal in not allowing me to use zazen as an escape. He said, "You must know that behind zazen are the teachings of Buddhism, and behind them, your own life experience." These words went a long way in clarifying for me a passage in the Sh?b?-genz?: Genj? K?an (Actualizing the Koan): "To study Buddhism is to study the Self.

Sawaki R?shi also used to say frequently, "Just sit?that's all there is," and "No matter how many years you sit doing zazen, you will never become anything special.

However, the reader should not get the idea that here I am comparing zazen with the rest of our day-to-day activities. To do so would be to fall into the trap that many practitioners fall into of clinging to the idea that practicing zazen is most important; therefore, one should practice it twenty-four hours a day. The error here is in taking literally the idea of zazen being the most important activity in our life as opposed to all our other activities.

On the other hand, there is another trap that people can and often do fall into, and that is the one of thinking that we must practice zazen in all of our day-to-day activities. The obvious next step in this way of thinking is to equate all of one's activities with zazen. That is, everything one does is zazen?eating, sleeping

drinking, being. The practical problem in this way of thinking is that all too often people simply wind up doing less and less zazen, deluding themselves into believing that since all their activities are zazen there is no need to sit and face the wall and do zazen.