Dogen Zenji Quotes

That which is cannot be true.

Art has a double face, of expression and illusion, just like science has a double face: the reality of error and the phantom of truth.

It's all real and it's all illusory: that's Awareness!

Who would ever give up the reality of dreams for relative knowledge?

I think there's more real in the unreal than there is in the real.

Truths are illlusions which we have forgotten are illusions.

Things are not what they appear to be: nor are they otherwise.

Your harshest truths are dreams, and your gentlest dreams are true.

An ancient buddha said, “Mountains are mountains; waters are waters.” These words do not mean mountains are mountains; they mean mountains are mountains.

How paradoxical it is to search reality for the pictures that are stored in one's memory.

If true, rarely beautiful. If beautiful, rarely true.

Intelligence is the shadow of objective truth. How can the shadow vie with sunshine?

What, concretely, is Enlightenment ?" "Seeing Reality as it is," said the Master. "Doesn't everyone see Reality as it is?" "Oh, no! Most people see it as they think it is." "What's the difference?" "The difference between thinking you are drowning in a stormy sea and knowing you cannot drown because there isn't any water in sight for miles around.

There are times when I catch myself believing that there is such a thing as something; which is separate from something else.

Illusions are the truths we live by until we know better.

All you know is what you think you know, but that isn't always what's real.

You think you know someone. But mostly you just know what you want to know.

The Truth lies not in the Yes and not in the No, but in the knowledge and the beginning from which the Yes and the No arise.

Since I wasn't able to leave a succession of beautiful lies, I want to leave the smidgen of truth that the falsehood of everything lets us suppose we can tell.

It’s like, everything really is two ways, the way we all pretend it is and the way it really is

Realize all this as illusion, realize that within the illusion is the Real.

Some stories are true that never happened.

Most people live in a myth and grow violently angry if anyone dares to tell them the truth about themselves.

From a distance it is something; and nearby it is nothing.

I often wonder which is best, to be honest about what you know in this world, or to continue to deny you know it and thereby fool yourself into believing that it does not exist!