Dogen Quotes

#1. At the moment of giving birth to a child, is the mother separate from the child? You should study not only that you become a mother when your child is born, but also that you become a child. - Dogen Zenji, Mountains and Waters Sutra

Karen Maezen Miller

#2. Inspiration comes from everything from the entire world, and it's hard to pinpoint one thing. I can trace one inspiration to the writing of 13th-century Zen master Dogen Zenji, who writes beautifully about time.

Ruth Ozeki

#3. Zen Master Dogen has pointed out that anxiety, when accepted, is the driving force to enlightenment in that it lays bare the human dilemma at the same time that it ignites our desire to break out of it.

Philip Kapleau

#4. Dogen Zenj rightly said that, 'Life and death are of supreme importance. Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost. Each of us should strive to awaken, take heed and not squander life'.

Reiju Gensho

#5. People like what is not true and they don't like what is true.

Dogen

#6. Do not be amazed by the true dragon.

Dogen

#7. Truth is not far away. It is nearer than near. There is no need to attain it, since not one of your steps leads away from it.

Dogen

#8. In the stream,
Rushing past
To the dusty world,
My fleeting form
Casts no reflection.

Dogen

#9. Students, when you want to say something, think about it three times before you say it. Speak only if your words will benefit yourselves and others. Do not speak if it brings no benefit.

Dogen

#10. Does a dragon still sing from within a withered tree?

Dogen

#11. There is no beginning to practice nor end to enlightenment; There is no beginning to enlightenment nor end to practice.

Dogen

#12. If you cannot find the truth within yourself, where else do you expect to find it?

Dogen

#13. All that's visible springs from causes intimate to you. While walking, sitting, lying down, the body itself is complete truth. If someone asks the inner meaning of this: Inside the treasury of dharma eye a single grain of dust.

Dogen

#14. 59. "This dew-like life will fade away; avoid involvement in superfluous things." ~

Dogen

#15. Because monks come from the midst of purity, they consider as good and pure what does not arouse desire among other people.

Dogen

#16. A fool sees himself as another, but a wise man sees others as himself.

Dogen

#17. To start from the self and try to understand all things is delusion. To let the self be awakened by all things is enlightenment.

Dogen

#18. Do not arouse disdainful mind when you prepare a broth of wild grasses; do not arouse joyful mind when you prepare a fine cream soup.

Dogen

#19. There are those who, attracted by grass, flowers, mountains, and waters, flow into the Buddha Way.

Dogen

#20. Your body is like a dew-drop on the morning grass, your life is as brief as a flash of lightning. Momentary and vain, it is lost in a moment. (From 'Fukan zazengi')

Dogen

#21. Handle even a single leaf of green in such a way that it manifests the body of the Buddha. This in turn allows the Buddha to manifest through the leaf.

Dogen

#22. Just study Buddhism. Don't follow the sentiments of the world.

Dogen

#23. Practice and enlightenment are not two.

Dogen

#24. Zazen is an activity that is an extension of the universe. Zazen is not the life of an individual, it's the universe that's breathing.

Dogen

#25. Those who see worldly life as an obstacle to Dharma see no Dharma in everyday actions. They have not yet discovered that there are no everyday actions outside of Dharma.

Dogen

#26. Sitting is the gateway of truth to total liberation.

Dogen

#27. Emptiness is bound to bloom, like hundreds of grasses blossoming.

Dogen

#28. What you think in your own mind to be good, or what people of the world think is good, is not necessarily good.

Dogen

#29. When you paint Spring, do not paint willows, plums, peaches, or apricots, but just paint Spring. To paint willows, plums, peaches, or apricots is to paint willows, plums, peaches, or apricots - it is not yet painting Spring.

Dogen

#30. In autumn even though I may see it again, how can I sleep with the moon this evening?

Dogen

#31. If you want to see things just as they are, then you yourself must practice just as you are.

Dogen

#32. Students today should live fully every moment of time. This dew-like life fades away; time speeds swiftly. In this short life of ours, avoid involvement in superfluous things and just study the Way.

Dogen

#33. Since it is the practice of enlightenment, that practice has no beginning and since it is enlightenment within the practice, that realization has no end.

Dogen

#34. In a snowfall that covers the winter grass a white heron uses his own whiteness to disappear.

Dogen

#35. When both body and mind are at peace, all things appear as they are: perfect, complete, lacking nothing.

Dogen

#36. Realization doesn't destroy the individual any more than the reflection of the moon breaks a drop of water. A drop of water can reflect the whole sky.

Dogen

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

Dogen

#38. What is the way of the Buddha? It is to study the self. What is the study of the self? It is to forget oneself. To forget oneself is to enlightened by everything in the world.

Dogen

#39. Although we say mountains belong to the country, actually, they belong to those that love them.

Dogen

#40. If we look at the world with a deluded body and mind, we will think that our self is permanent. But if we practice correctly and return to our true self, we will realize that nothing is permanent

Dogen

#41. That you carry yourself forward and experience the myriad things is delusion. That the myriad things come forward and experience themselves is awakening

Dogen

#42. Do not miss the opportunity of offering even a single drop into the ocean of merit or a grain atop the mountain of the roots of beneficial activity.

Dogen

#43. Each moment of zazen is equally wholeness of practice, equally wholeness of realization. This is not only practice while sitting, it is like a hammer striking emptiness: before and after, its exquisite peal permeates everywhere. How can it be limited to this moment?

Dogen

#44. When the old plum tree blooms, the entire world blooms.

Dogen

#45. To enter the Buddha Way is to stop discriminating between good and evil and to cast aside the mind that says this is good and that is bad.

Dogen

#46. To what shall
I liken the world?
Moonlight, reflected
In dewdrops,
Shaken from a crane's bill.

Dogen

#47. Enlightenment is intimacy with all things.

Dogen

#48. Those who regard worldly affairs as a hindrance to buddha dharma think only that there is no buddha dharma in the secular world; they do not understand that there is no secular world in buddha dharma.

Dogen

#49. The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in one dewdrop on the grass.

Dogen

#50. A flower falls, even though we love it; and a weed grows, even though we do not love it.

Dogen

#51. Though it has no thought of keeping watch, it's not for naught that the scarecrow stands in the grain field.

Dogen

#52. Because mountains are high and broad, the way of riding the clouds is always reached in the mountains; the inconceivable power of soaring in the wind comes freely from the mountains

Dogen

#53. Why abandon a seat in your own home to wander in vain through dusty regions of another land? If you make one false step, you miss what is right before your eyes.

Dogen

#54. The coming and going of birth and death is a painting. Unsurpassed enlightenment is a painting. The entire phenomenal universe and the empty sky are nothing but a painting.

Dogen

#55. Do not follow the ideas of others, but learn to listen to the voice within yourself. Your body and mind will become clear and you will realize the unity of all things.

Dogen

#56. You should study not only that you become a mother when your child is born, but also that you become a child.

Dogen

#57. Nothing can be gained by extensive study and wide reading. Give them up immediately.

Dogen

#58. To escape from the world means that one's mind is not concerned with the opinions of the world.

Dogen

#59. Cease from practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words, and following after speech.

Dogen

#60. To study Buddhism is to study ourselves. To study ourselves is to forget ourselves.

Dogen

#61. A zen master's life is one continuous mistake.

Dogen

#62. 184. "Focus your mind on one thing, absorb the old examples, study the actions of the masters- penetrate deeply into a single form of practice." ~

Dogen

#63. If you do not get it from yourself, where will you go for it?

Dogen

#64. Each moment is all being, each moment is the entire world. Reflect now whether any being or any world is left out of the present moment.

Dogen

#65. There are myriads of forms and hundreds of grasses throughout the entire earth, yet each grass and each form itself is the entire earth.

Dogen

#66. Yet you must not cling to the words of the old sages either; they, too, may not be right. Even if you believe them, you should be alert so that , in the event that something superior comes along, you may follow that.

Dogen

#67. The color of the mountains is Buddha's body; the sound of running water is his great speech.

Dogen

#68. Consider that nirvana is itself no other than our life.

Dogen

#69. I asked, "What are words?" The tenzo said, "One, two, three, four, five." I asked again, "What is practice?" "Nothing in the entire universe is hidden."

Dogen

#70. Learn the backward step that turns your light inward to illuminate your self. Body and mind of themselves will drop away, and your original face will be manifest.

Dogen

#71. When one first seeks the truth, one separates oneself from it.

Dogen

#72. Understand clearly that when a great need appears a great use appears also; when there is small need there is small use; it is obvious, then, that full use is made of all things at all times according to the necessity thereof.

Dogen

#73. When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point.

Dogen

#74. When mountains and waters are painted, blue, green, and red paints are used, strange rocks and wondrous stones are used, the four jewels and the seven treasures are used. Rice-cakes are painted in the same manner. When a person is painted, the four great elements and five skandhas are used.

Dogen

#75. People who truly follow the Way would do well to conceal the fact that they are Buddhists.

Dogen

#76. Life and death are of supreme importance. Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost. Each of us should strive to awaken. Awaken! Take heed, do not squander your life.

Dogen

#77. You should stop searching for phrases and chasing after words. Take the backward step and turn the light inward. Your body-mind of itself will drop off and your original face will appear. If you want to attain just this, immediately practice just this.

Dogen

#78. Let your heart go out and abide in things. Let things return and abide in your heart.

Dogen

#79. In the mundane, nothing is sacred. In sacredness, nothing is mundane.

Dogen

#80. If you want to do a certain thing, you first have to be a certain person. Once you become that certain person, you will not care anymore about doing that certain thing.

Dogen

#81. Refraining from all evil, not clinging to birth and death, working in deep compassion for all sentient beings, respecting those over you and pitying those below you, without any detesting or desiring, worrying or lamentation - this is what is called Buddha. Do not search beyond it.

Dogen

#82. Do not doubt that mountains walk simply because they may not appear to walk like humans.

Dogen

#83. It's too late to be ready.

Dogen

#84. Clearly I know, the mind is mountains, rivers, and the great earth; sun, moon, and stars.

Dogen

#85. If he cannot stop the mind that seeks after fame and profit, he will spend his life without finding peace.

Dogen

#86. Those who seek the easy way do not seek the true way.

Dogen

#87. There are mountains hidden in mountains. There are mountains hidden in hiddenness. This is complete understanding.

Dogen

#88. Coming, going, the waterbirds don't leave a trace, don't follow a path.

Dogen

#89. One must be deeply aware of the impermanence of the world.

Dogen

#90. Through one word, or seven words, or three times five, even if you investigate thoroughly myriad forms, nothing can be depended upon. Night advances, the moon glows and falls into the ocean. The black dragon jewel you have been searching for, is everywhere.

Dogen

#91. Meditation is not a way to enlightenment, Nor is it a method of achieving anything at all. It is peace itself. It is the actualization of wisdom, The ultimate truth of the oneness of all things.

Dogen

#92. If we seek the Buddha outside the mind, the Buddha changes into a devil.

Dogen

#93. That the self advances and confirms the ten thousand things is called delusion; that the ten thousand things advance and confirm the self is called enlightenment.

Dogen

#94. When you walk in the mist, you get wet.

Dogen

#95. [W]hen you practise right meditation, you 'cease from practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words and following speech, and learn the backward step that turns your light inwardly to illuminate your self.

Steve Hagen

#96. Forgetting oneself is opening oneself

Dogen

#97. Just practice good, do good for others, without thinking of making yourself known so that you may gain reward. Really bring benefit to others, gaining nothing for yourself. This is the primary requisite for breaking free of attachments to the Self.

Dogen

#98. Those who practice know whether realization is attained or not, just as those who drink water know whether it is hot or cold

Dogen

#99. I haven't got any Buddhism. I live by letting things happen.

Dogen

#100. The true person is
Not anyone in particular;
But like the deep blue color
Of the limitless sky,
It is everyone,
Everywhere in the world.

Dogen