Shobogenzo

[shobogenzo]

"Picking up a flower and winking an eye are all the Universe, which is realized by clouded eyes and flowers in space."

Words by Eihei Dogen

Art by Karl Friedrich Schinkel

[shobogenzo]

Although the wind

blows terribly here,

the moonlight also leaks

between the roof planks

of this ruined house.

Izumi Shikibu 974–1034

Image by Yohan Terraza

[shobogenzo]

"Ten years not returning, I forgot the way I had come."

-Han-Shan

[shobogenzo]

“Beyond the edge of the world there’s a space where emptiness and substance neatly overlap, where past and future form a continuous, endless loop. And, hovering about, there are signs no one has ever read, chords no one has ever heard.” 

― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

[shobogenzo]

What if Money Was No Object - What would you Do?

[shobogenzo]

How calm the ocean,

Towering the void.

-Tessho

[shobogenzo]

Do not think you will necessarily be aware of your own enlightenment.

-Dogen

[shobogenzo]

And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

-Dogen

[shobogenzo]

Should you desire the great tranquility

Prepare to sweat.

-Hakuin

[shobogenzo]

Just be ordinary and nothing special. Eat your food, move your bowels, pass water, and when you're tired go and lie down. The ignorant will laugh at me, but the wise will understand.

-Rinzai

[shobogenzo]

Those who know don't tell, and those who tell don't know.

[shobogenzo]

The only Zen you find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there.

- Robert M. Pirsig 

[shobogenzo]

Then he suddenly saw clearly that he was leading a strange life, that he was doing many things that were only a game, that he was quite cheerful and sometimes experienced pleasure, but that real life was flowing past him and did not touch him.

[shobogenzo]

"We have learned much, Siddhartha.  There still remains much to learn.  We are not going in circles, we are going upwards.  The path is a spiral; we have already climbed many steps."

[shobogenzo]

Nothing we see or hear is perfect. But right there in the imperfection is perfect reality.

 -Shunryu Suzuki

[shobogenzo]

Treat every moment as your last. It is not preparation for something else.

- Shunryu Suzuki 

[shobogenzo]

No valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.

-Alan Watts