Dogen Quotations

When we discover that the truth is already in us, we are all at once our original selves.

Working with plants, trees, fences and walls, if they practice sincerely they will attain enlightenment.

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

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

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

Do no harmful actions, do not become attached to the cycle of death and rebirth, show kindness, respect the old and have compassion for the young, do not have a heart that rejects or a heart that covets and have no worry or sadness in your heart. This is what is called enlightenment. Do not seek it elsewhere.

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.

When a buddha is painted, not only a clay altar or lump of earth is used, but the thirty-two marks, a blade of grass, and the cultivation of wisdom for incalculable eons are used. As a Buddha has been painted on a single scroll in this way, all buddhas are painted buddhas, and all painted buddhas are actual buddhas.

We must always be disturbed by the truth.

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

Zazen is the ultimate practice. This is indeed the True Self. The Buddhadharma is not to be sought outside of this.

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

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

IF YOU WOULD BE FREE OF GREED, FIRST YOU HAVE TO LEAVE EGOTISM BEHIND. THE BEST MENTAL EXERCISE FOR RELINQUISHING EGOTISM IS CONTEMPLATING IMPERMANENCE.

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

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.

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

Does a dragon still sing from within a withered tree?

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

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

Something you want badly enough can always be gained. No matter how fierce the enemy, how remote the beautiful lady, or how carefully guarded the treasure, there is always a means to the goal for the earnest seeker. The unseen help of the guardian gods of heaven and earth assure fulfillment.

Inside the treasury of the dharma eye a single grain of dust.

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

When other sects speak well of Zen, the first thing that they praise is its poverty.

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.

When you paint Spring, do not paint willows, plums, peaches, or apricots - just paint Spring.

Students of the Way must not study Buddhism for the sake of themselves. They must study Buddhism only for the sake of Buddhism. The key to this is to renounce both body and mind without holding anything back and to offer them to the great sea of Buddhism.

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

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.

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.

The recognition of the coming and going of things is a first step in training and practice.

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.

Yet, though it is like this, simply, flowers fall amid our longing and weeds spring up amid our antipathy.

Just as parents care for their children, you should bear in mind the whole universe.

Mountains and rivers at this very moment are the actualization of the world of the ancient Buddhas. Each, abiding in its phenomenal expression, realizes completeness.

To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by the ten thousand things.

Continuous practice, day after day, is the most appropriate way of expressing gratitude. This means that you practice continuously, without wasting a single day of your life, without using it for your own sake. Why is it so? Your life is a fortunate outcome of the continuous practice of the past. You should express your gratitude immediately.

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

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

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.

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

Every man possesses the Buddha-nature. Do not demean yourselves.

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

Nothing in the entire universe is hidden.

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

A zen master's life is one continuous mistake.

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.

As I study both the exoteric and the esoteric schools of Buddhism, they maintain that human beings are endowed with Dharma-nature by birth. If this is the case, why did the Buddhas of all ages - undoubtedly in possession of enlightenment - find it necessary to seek enlightenment and engage in spiritual practice?

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.

Do not practice buddha-dharma with the thought that it is to benefit others.

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

To study the Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self.

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

Be mindful of the passing of time, and engage yourself in zazen as though you are saving your head from fire.

Do not view mountains from the scale of human thought.

Know that the true dharma emerges of itself [during the practice of zazen], clearing away hindrances and distractions.

Mountains and oceans have whole worlds of innumerable wondrous features. We should understand that it is not only our distant surroundings that are like this, but even what is right here, even a single drop of water.

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.

Do not be amazed by the true dragon.

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.

In doing zazen it is desirable to have a quiet room. You should be temperate in eating and drinking, forsaking all delusive relationships. Setting everything aside, think of neither good nor evil, right nor wrong. Thus having stopped the various functions of your mind, five up even the idea of becoming a Buddha.

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.

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

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

What is reality? An icicle forming in fire.

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

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.

In the assemblies of the enlightened ones there have been many cases of mastering the Way bringing forth the heart of plants and trees; this is what awakening the mind for enlightenment is like. The fifth patriarch of Zen was once a pine-planting wayfarer; Rinzai worked on planting cedars and pines on Mount Obaku. . . . Working with plants, trees, fences and walls, if they practice sincerely they will attain enlightenment.

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.

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.

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

The one and only thing required is to free oneself from the bondage of mind and body alike, putting the Buddha's own seal upon yourself. If you do this as you sit in ecstatic meditation, the whole universe itself scattered through the infinity of space turns into enlightenment. This is what I mean by the Buddha's seal.

To study the Way is to study the Self. To study the Self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things of the universe. To be enlightened by all things of the universe is to cast off the body and mind of the self as well as those of others. Even the traces of enlightenment are wiped out, and life with traceless enlightenment goes on forever and ever

Enlightenment is intimacy with all things.

Sitting is the gateway of truth to total liberation.

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.

Time is three eyes and eight elbows.

When you walk in the mist, you get wet.

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.

A fish swims in the ocean, and no matter how far it swims there is no end to the water. A bird flies in the sky, and no matter how far it flies there is no end to the air. However the fish and the bird have never left their elements. Thus each of them totally covers its full range, and each of them totally experiences its realm... Know that water is life and air is life. The bird is life and the fish is life. Life must be the bird and life must be the fish... practice, enlightenment and people are like this.

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.

Studying the Buddha way is studying oneself. Studying oneself is forgetting oneself. Forgetting oneself is being enlightened by all things. Being enlightened by all things is to shed the body-mind of oneself, and those of others. No trace of enlightenment remains, and this traceless enlightenment continues endlessly.

The zazen I speak of is not learning meditation. It is simply the Dharma gate of repose and bliss, the practice-realization of totally culminated enlightenment. It is the manifestation of ultimate reality. Traps and snares can never reach it. Once its heart is grasped, you are like the dragon when he gains the water, like the tiger when she enters the mountain. For you must know that just there (in zazen) the right Dharma is manifesting itself and that, from the first, dullness and distraction are struck aside.

Consider that nirvana is itself no other than our life.

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.

There are thousands upon thousands of students who have practiced meditation and obtained its fruits. Do not doubt its possibilities because of the simplicity of the method. If you can not find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?

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

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

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.

To study the buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away. No trace of realization remains, and this no trace continues endlessly.

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

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

Forgetting oneself is opening oneself

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.

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

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.

In a mind clear as still water, even the waves, breaking, are reflecting its light.

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

Although its light is wide and great, the Moon is reflected in a puddle one inch wide. The whole Moon and the entire sky is reflected in one dew drop on the grass.

Whenever learners or those beyond learning awaken the mind, for the first time they plant one buddha-nature. Working with the four elements and five clusters, if they practice sincerely they attain enlightenment. Working with plants, trees, fences and walls, if they practice sincerely they will attain enlightenment. This is because the four elements and five clusters and plants, trees, fences and walls are fellow students; because they are of the same essence, because they are the same mind and the same life, because they are the same body and the same mechanism.