Quotes About Awareness

Zazen should never become a means of making yourself feel good nor should it be a tranquilizer to settle excitement and wild thoughts. What is of primary importance is what the ancients called "no gaining and no merit." Indeed, zazen consists in awakening us to our own essence so as to secure and express our true selves in our everyday conduct.

When we refer to the classic text Zazen-gi regarding the method of sitting, we find the following written about the essential technique of zazen, "Once the posture has been stabilized and the breath regulated, push forth the lower abdomen; one thinks not of good or evil.

As we become advanced in meditation, sometimes phenomena appear during our meditation. Some of them are favorable while others are not. As a whole, they have always been called makyo (disturbing conditions). For

Master Harada Sogaku writes, "For beginners it is adequate to sit for about thirty minutes at a time.

Kinhin means walking in the Zen hall after sitting in Zen meditation for some time. We walk meditatively with our hands held against our chests. The closed right hand held lightly against the chest is covered with the left hand, and both of the arms are held up horizontally.

True "no-thought, no-mind" zazen is just one thing—to have a dauntless mind.

If possible, we should sit as often as we can every day. In case it is impossible for us to sit many times a day, we must find ways to sit in the intervals of our work or while riding buses and trains on our way to and from work in addition to sitting once a day before going to bed.

In the distinguished book Zazen no Shokei by the lay Zen Master Kawajiri Hogin, he writes, "Because zazen is training to realize the One Mind of yourself, it is a mistake to set up an aim outside of yourself … Not setting up an aim is the true aim.

This teaching of O Yomei reminds me of "Kyosho Dofu (Ching-ch'ing Tao-fu) and the voice of rain drops" as told in Article 46 of the Hekigan Roku (Pi-yen Lu).

T]he ignorant soul is unaware even of that in which another is successful, but knowledge bears additional witness to that which is well done.

However wildly this year's cherry blossoms bloom, I'll see them with the plum's scent filling my heart.

I remember a specific moment, watching my grandmother hang the clothes on the line, and her saying to me, 'you are going to have to learn to do this ' and me being in that space of awareness and knowing that my life would not be the same as my grandmother's life.

Before you agree to do anything that might add even the smallest amount of stress to your life, ask yourself What is my truest intention Give yourself time to let a yes resound within you. When it's right, I guarantee that your entire body will feel it.

Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.

Dogs do speak, but only to those who know how to listen.

Try to discover who I am from my choice of words and colors, as attentive people like yourselves might examine footprints to catch a thief.

Sometimes I think there are only two instructions we need to follow to develop and deepen our spiritual life: slow down and let go.

Every act I live while I am fully awake can not help but be both prayer and lovemaking.

I want to know if you can see beauty even when it's not pretty, every day,and if you can source your own life from its presence.

The world offers itself to me in a thousand ways, and I ache with an awareness of how infrequently I am able to receive more than a small fraction of what is offered, of how often I reject what is because I feel it is not good enough.

Once in a while, we are given moments of real grace.

What is difficult to acknowledge is that I saw this mistake coming and second-guessed myself, went against my own intuitive judgment. It wasn't that I had not seen the truth. I had. But I failed to find the courage to act on it. Of course, my intuition can be wrong. But making a wrong decision, acting on an intuition that is inaccurate, is a real mistake, one I can live with more easily than the mistake of failing to act on what, to the best of my ability, I know.

Wisdom is knowledge which has become a part of one's being.

But how shall I get ideas? Keep your wits open! Observe! Observe! Study! Study! But above all, Think! Think! And when a noble image is indelibly impressed upon the mind -- Act!