Dogen Zenji Quotes

If you want to be happy, live discreetly. Does that make sense in English?

The hurried can become unhurried. But it will not happen by trying alone, nor will it happen instantly. You will have to enter a life of training.

The wise man knows how to run his life so that contemplation is Possible.

A thoroughly good relationship with ourselves results in being still, which doesn't mean we don't run and jump and dance about. It means there's no compulsiveness. We don't overwork, overeat, oversmoke, overseduce. In short, we begin to stop causing harm.

Too often we spend our time in the past or the future. We need to learn to live now - mentally as well as physically and spiritually.

Walk, with awareness. Eat, with awareness. Breathe, with awareness.

The very actions themselves can be a meditation. For me, walking is certainly a meditation if I walk for awhile. First my mind is busy and I'm thinking about different things and after a while that starts to fall away and I start to become very present in the moment. And that feeling of being present in the moment is being. That's when we know we're connecting with being energy.

Do nothing immoderate.

Zazen practice and everyday activity are one thing. We call zazen everyday life, and everyday life zazen.

That's what I think is the biggest challenge, is just being still and learning how to just be present in that stillness and not over do it, not over act.

Keep belly lightly loaded, if mind would wisdom see;For bodies crammed to bursting, make empty souls to be.

Those who walk in the Way should avoid sensualism as those who carry hay would avoid coming near the fire.

Though one should live a hundred years without wisdom and control, yet better, indeed, is a single day's life of one who is wise and meditative.

The practice of Zen is to eat, breathe, cook, carry water, and scrub the toilet — to infuse every act of body, speech, and mind — with mindfulness, to illuminate every leaf and pebble, every heap of garbage, every path that leads to our mind's return home.

Offend in neither word nor deed. Eat with moderation. Live in your heart. Seek the highest consciousness. Master yourself according to the law. This is the simple teaching of the awakened.

I live in the present moment.

Buddha's teaching are very simple, you don't have to break your head to understand the message. The part that I like the most from Buddha's teachings and from His Holiness, The Dalai Lama, is that the most powerful weapon is to not attack, to be able to have self-control.

So, at the age of nine, I became a monk, and from then on I was there practicing that kind of nonviolence.

I'd like to be more patient! I just want everything now. I've tried to meditate, but it's really hard for me to stay still. I'd like to try to force myself to do it, because everybody says how wonderful meditation is for you, but I can't shut my mind up. So patience and learning is the key.

Confine yourself to the present.

I learned long ago to focus on things you can control and don't even pay attention to things you don't.

I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.

If every day you practice walking and sitting meditation and generate the energy of mindfulness and concentration and peace, you are a cell in the body of the new Buddha. This is not a dream but is possible today and tomorrow.

This is what I think is very essential... moderation can be good for you.

Meditation is a lifelong process. Give it a try. As you get deeper and more disciplined into the process, you'll get deeper and more disciplined in your mind and life.