Stupidity is the same as evil if you judge by the results.
―Margaret Atwood, Surfacing
When practitioners of Zen fail to transcend the…
When practitioners of Zen fail to transcend the world of their senses and thoughts, all they do has no value. Yet, when senses and thoughts are obliterated all the roads to universal mind are blocked and there is no entrance. The primal mind has to be recognised along with the senses and thoughts. It neither belongs to them nor is independent of them. Don’t build your understanding on your senses and thoughts, yet don’t look for the mind separate from your senses and thoughts. Don’t attempt to grasp Reality by pushing away your senses and thoughts. Unobstructed freedom is to be neither attached nor detached. This is enlightenment.
Huang-Po
I have returned to the root and effort…
I have returned to the root and effort is over. From the first there has been no one to see or hear anything. There is nothing outside of my true home. Rivers quietly flow and red flowers bloom.
Kuo-An Shih-Yuan
Unfettered like a wafting mist I give myself…
Unfettered like a wafting mist I give myself up to where the wind wants me to be.
Ryokan
A student once asked master Bassui ‘Are you…
A student once asked master Bassui, ‘Are you saying that someone who sees his own nature and is free from delusion is innocent of error, even if he does something which breaks the Buddhist precepts?’ He replied, ‘If someone’s actions come from their essential nature, how could they be breaking the precepts?’