...

A source of trouble is that our minds are unruly. We need to effect an inner transformation, to understand that love and affection are a real source of joy. It’s important to be warm-hearted rather than selfish. We’ll be less sick, live longer and have more friends here and now.

- Dalai Lama

for far too long i have not picked up my camera because i didn't know what i wanted to photograph

what was the point to an image that i had not manipulated?

today i will release the illusion of control and allow my camera to record what IT sees, not what i want to see

Don't tell me how difficult the Way.
The bird's path, winding far,
Is right before you.
Water of the Dokei Gorge,
You return to the ocean,
I to the mountain.

- Hofuku Seikatsu (10th c)

If you are able to make this mind your own,
Then even though you do not seek excellence yourself,
Excellence comes to you of its own accord.
Without seeking emancipation,
You are not hindered by a single thing.

- Daito (1282-1336)

Begin today. Declare out loud
to the universe that you are
willing to let go of struggle
and eager to learn through
joy.

- Sarah Ban Breathnach

Leaving, where to go?
Staying, where?
Which to choose?
I stand aloof.
To whom speak my parting words?
The galaxy, white, immense.
A crescent moon.

- Shoten (11th c)

Praise What Comes


Surprising as unplanned kisses, all you haven't deserved
of days and solitude, your body's immoderate good health
that lets you work in many kinds of weather. Praise
talk with just about anyone. And quiet intervals, books
that are your food and your hunger; nightfall and walks
before sleep. Praising these for practice, perhaps
you will come at last to praise grief and the wrongs
you never intended. At the end there may be no answers
and only a few very simple questions: did I love,
finish my task in the world? Learn at least one
of the many names of God? At the intersections,
the boundaries where one life began and another
ended, the jumping-off places between fear and
possibility, at the ragged edges of pain,
did I catch the smallest glimpse of the holy?
~Jeanne Lohmann

People in older times asked questions on account of confusion, so they were seeking actual realization through their questioning; when they got a single saying or half a phrase, they would take it seriously and examine it until they penetrated it.

They were not like people nowadays who pose questions at random and answer with whatever comes out of their mouths, making laughingstocks of themselves

- Foyan (1067–1120)

“The doors to the world of the wild Self are few but precious. If you have a deep scar, that is a door, if you have an old, old story, that is a door. If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door. If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door.”
~Clarissa Pinkola Estés

"Behold, I stand at the door and knock..."
~Revelation 3:20

Zen study is not a small matter.
You do not yet need to transcend the Buddhas and surpass the adepts;
but once you have attained it,
it will not be hard to transcend and surpass them if you wish.

- Foyan (1067–1120)

Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world.

Buddha.

Does one really have to fret
About enlightenment?
No matter what road I travel
I'm going home.

- Shinsho

“be excellent to each other!”

Bill (& Ted)

Underworld hells and heavenly palaces
Both are but a single thought.
Nirvana or the world of samsara,
Both are but one Buddha nature.

- Su Shih (1037-1101)

...when we talk of nirvana we imagine that there is such a thing...

as in the case of a table or a book.
Nirvana, however, is no more than a state of mind or consciousness when we actually transcend relativity
—the world of birth and death.

- D.T. Suzuki (1870-1966)