Dogen Zenji Quotes

Through woods and mountain passes The winds, like anthems, roll.

Honestly, I do not experience fear in the mountains. On the contraryI feel my shoulders straightening, squaring, like the birds as they straighten their wings. I enjoy the freedom and the altitude. It is only when I return to life below that I feel the world's weight on my shoulders.

You don't need to climb a mountain to know that it's high.

At the top of the mountain we are all snow leopards.

High high in the hills , high in a pine tree bed. She's tracing the wind with that old hand, counting the clouds with that old chant, Three geese in a flock one flew east one flew west one flew over the cuckoo's nest

What is that mountain goat doing way up here in the clouds?

Straddling the top of the world, one foot in China and the other in Nepal, I cleared the ice from my oxygen mask, hunched a shoulder against the wind, and stared absently down at the vastness of Tibet.

Clambering up the Cold Mountain path, The Cold Mountain trail goes on and on: The long gorge choked with scree and boulders, The wide creek, the mist-blurred grass. The moss is slippery, though there's been no rain The pine sings, but there's no wind. Who can leap the world's ties And sit with me among the white clouds?

Talent, will and genius are natural phenomena like the lake, the volcano, the mountain, the wind, the star, the cloud.

To know the laws that govern the winds, and to know that you know them, will give you an easy mind on your voyage round the world; otherwise you may tremble at the appearance of every cloud.

Mountains define you. You cannot define / Them.

You're at the bottom of the mountain. May you climb up without suffering.

Fit for the mountains and the barbarous caves, where manners ne'er were preached.

When God wants to move a mountain, he does not take a bar of iron, but he takes a little worm. The fact is, we have too much strength. We are not weak enough. It is not our strength that we want. One drop of God's strength is worth more than all the world.

And now that we have returned to the desultory life of the plain, let us endeavor to import a little of that mountain grandeur into it. We will remember within what walls we lie, and understand that this level life too has its summit, and why from the mountain-top the deepest valleys have a tinge of blue; that there is elevation in every hour, as no part of the earth is so low that the heavens may not be seen from, and we have only to stand on the summit of our hour to command an uninterrupted horizon.

The soul of the river had entered my soul, And the gathered power of my soul was moving So swiftly, it seemed to be at rest Under cities of cloud and under Spheres of silver and changing worlds Until I saw a flash of trumpets Above the battlements over Time!

But your isolation must not be mechanical, but spiritual, that is, must be elevation.

Nothing but mountains filled with barbarous ethnics with views as medieval as their muskets, and unspeakably cruel too.

This is what I have heard at last the wind in December lashing the old trees with rain unseen rain racing along the tiles under the moon wind rising and falling wind with many clouds trees in the night wind.

And were my faith so strong that it could move mountains, that is the mountain that I would make come to me.

Ah, the souls of those that die Are but sunbeams lifted higher.

The sun was warm but the wind was chill. You know how it is with an April day. When the sun is out and the wind is still, You're one month on in the middle of May. But if you so much as dare to speak, a cloud come over the sunlit arch, And wind comes off a frozen peak, And you're two months back in the middle of March.

O that our souls could scale a height like this, A mighty mountain swept o'er by the bleak Keen winds of heaven; and, standing on that peak Above the blinding clouds of prejudice, Would we could see all truly as it is; The calm eternal truth would keep us meek.

Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles, and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight line.