Week 2024-04: Seungsahn Haengwon - Collected Quotes

"Clear mind is like the full moon in the sky. Sometimes clouds come and cover it, but the moon is always behind them. Clouds go away, then the moon shines brightly. So don't worry about clear mind: it is always there. When thinking comes, behind it is clear mind. When thinking goes, there is only clear mind. Thinking comes and goes, comes and goes, You must not be attached to the coming or the going." (Seungsahn Haengwon)

"Craziness is good. Crazy people are happy, free, they have no hindrance. But since you have many attachment, you are only a little crazy. This is not crazy enough. You must become completely crazy. Then you will understand." (Seungsahn Haengwon)

"If you are thinking, you can't understand Zen. Anything that can be written in a book, anything that can be said - all this is thinking [...] but if you read with a mind that has cut off all thinking, then Zen books, sutras and Bibles are all the truth. So is the barking of a dog or the crowing of a rooster. All things are teaching you at every moment, and these sounds are even better teaching than Zen books." (Seungsahn Haengwon)

"If you want something then you lose everything. If you don’t want anything then you already have everything." (Seungsahn Haengwon)

"If you throw away all thoughts of attainment, you will then come to see the real purpose of your quest." (Seungsahn Haengwon)

"In the past, kong-an (koan) practicing meant checking someone's enlightenment. Now we use kong-ans to make our lives correct. [...]You must use kong-ans to take away your opinions. When you take away your opinions, your mind is clear like space, which means from moment to moment you can reflect any situation and respond correctly and meticulously." (Seungsahn Haengwon)

"Meditation means always keeping one mind, not-moving mind." (Seungsahn Haengwon)

"Perceiving your own voice means perceiving your true self or nature. When you and the sound become one, you dont hear the sound; you are the sound." (Seungsahn Haengwon)

"The Great Way has no gate. Clear water has no taste. The tongue has no bone. In complete stillness, a stone girl is dancing." (Seungsahn Haengwon)

"The one who praises you is a thief. The one who criticizes you is your true friend." (Seungsahn Haengwon)

"The Truth is realized in an instant; the Act is practiced step by step." (Seungsahn Haengwon)

"Throwing away Zen mind is correct Zen mind. Only keep the question, 'What is the best way of helping other people?'" (Seungsahn Haengwon)

"When reading, only read. When eating, only eat. When thinking, only think." (Seungsahn Haengwon)

"Zen is very easy! It's like touching your nose when you wash your face in the morning!" (Seungsahn Haengwon)

Week 2024-03: Sheng-yen [Zhang Baokang] - Collected Quotes

"A prerequisite to progress on the path is to realize that you are ignorant." (Sheng Yen, "Song of Mind: Wisdom from the Zen Classic Xin Ming", 2004)

"If moment by moment you can keep your mind clear then nothing will confuse you." (Sheng-yen, "Getting the Buddha Mind: On the Practice of Chan Retreat", 2005)

"Those who do not have faith in others will not be able to stand on their own." (Sheng-yen, "Dharma drum: The life and heart of Chan practice", 2006)

"Any method can settle the mind in the present moment, but with Silent Illumination you can be relieved of even the present moment. Just take this attitude: don’t worry about the past or the future, and let go of the present too. Just stay in awareness. Chan is called the 'gateless gate' because it has no door to enlightenment." (Sheng Yen, "The Method of No-Method: The Chan Practice of Silent Illumination", 2008)

"One method for calming the mind is to contemplate the transient nature of our thoughts. When you are aware that your thoughts arise and perish of their own accord, there will be no need to be ruled or conditioned by them. Your mind will settle into observing them with detached awareness and your emotions will become even. If you can do this, you will soon be able to pacify your mind." (Sheng Yen, "The Method of No-Method: The Chan Practice of Silent Illumination", 2008)

"Be soft in your practice. Think of the method as a fine silvery stream, not a raging waterfall. Follow the stream, have faith in its course. It will go on its own way, meandering here, trickling there. It will find the grooves, the cracks, the crevices. Just follow it. Never let it out of your sight. It will take you." (Sheng-yen)

"I follow four dictates: face it, accept it, deal with it, then let it go." (Sheng-yen)

"In meditation, silently and serenely, all words are transcended.
In Illumination, all things appear as is.
Silence is the ceasing of ego-grasping. Illumination is the functioning of the wonder of wisdom.
The unity of these two is awakening to Buddha Nature." (Sheng-yen)

Week 2024-02: Thubten Zopa Rinpoche - Collected Quotes

"As long as the mind is unsubdued, there is always outside harm. Once the mind is subdued, once there is no anger in the mental continuum, there is no outside enemy. An outside enemy exists only if there is anger inside." (Thubten Zopa Rinpoche, "The Door to Satisfaction: The Heart Advice of a Tibetan Buddhist Master", 1994)

"A sick body with a good heart is more beneficial to future lives than a fit, healthy body that is used for self-cherishing." (Thubten Zopa Rinpoche)

"By renouncing samsara, we renounce our habitual grasping, unhappy minds. And by renouncing samsara, we embrace our potential for enlightenment." (Thubten Zopa Rinpoche)

"Each one of us is responsible for other living beings' happiness, besides our own. As a result, your loving kindness is the most wish-fulfilling thing in life, more precious than anything else in this world. That makes for a most satisfying, fulfilling life." (Thubten Zopa Rinpoche)

"If one does not remember death, one does not remember Dharma." (Thubten Zopa Rinpoche)

"If you know the psychological nature of your own mind, depression is spontaneously dispelled; instead of being enemies and strangers, all living beings become your friends. The narrow mind rejects; wisdom accepts. Check your own mind to see whether or not this is true." (Thubten Zopa Rinpoche)

"It is great that even before we become enlightened or generate any lam-rim realizations we are able to offer incredible benefit to others. The person who does this is a very fortunate person and should rejoice very often." (Thubten Zopa Rinpoche)

"Live with compassion. Work with compassion. Die with compassion. Meditate with compassion. Enjoy with compassion. When problems come, experience them with compassion." (Thubten Zopa Rinpoche)

"Mindfulness meditation should be more than just watching what you are doing. What you really need to watch is your motivation." (Thubten Zopa Rinpoche)

"When it is impossible for anger to arise within you, you find no outside enemies anywhere. An outside enemy exists only if there is anger inside." (Thubten Zopa Rinpoche)

"When there is hallucination, there is the truth, by recognising it as hallucination. Where there is suffering, there is peace and bliss, by letting go and experiencing it for numberless suffering sentient beings. Always think of how others are kind and precious Treat them as you would like to be treated." (Thubten Zopa Rinpoche)

"Whenever you hear that someone else has been successful, rejoice. Always practice rejoicing for others-whether your friend or your enemy. If you cannot practice rejoicing, no matter how long you live, you will not be happy." (Thubten Zopa Rinpoche)

Week 2024-01: Viktor E Frankl - Collected Quotes

"At any moment, man must decide, for better or for worse, what will be the monument of his existence." (Viktor E Frankl, "Man's Search for Meaning", 1946)

"At such a moment, it is not the physical pain which hurts the most (and this applies to adults as much as to punished children); it is the mental agony caused by the injustice, the unreasonableness of it all." (Viktor E Frankl, "Man's Search for Meaning", 1946)

"For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment." (Viktor E Frankl, "Man's Search for Meaning", 1946)

"How can we dare to predict the behavior of man? We may predict the movements of a machine, of an automaton; more than this, we many even try to predict the mechanisms or 'dynamisms' of the human psyche as well. But man is more than psyche." (Viktor E Frankl, "Man's Search for Meaning", 1946)

"Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual." (Viktor E Frankl, "Man's Search for Meaning", 1946)

"Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality." (Viktor E Frankl, "Man's Search for Meaning", 1946)

"Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become the next moment. By the same token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant." (Viktor E Frankl, "Man's Search for Meaning", 1946)

"When we are no longer able to change a situation we are challenged to change ourselves." (Viktor E Frankl, "Man's Search for Meaning", 1946)

"What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him." (Viktor E Frankl, "Man's Search for Meaning", 1946)

"It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future." (Viktor Frankl, "From Death-camp to Existentialism: A Psychiatrist's Path to a New Therapy", 1959)

"Ever more people today have the means to live, but no meaning to live for." (Viktor E Frankl, "The Unheard Cry for Meaning: Psychotherapy and Humanism", 1978)

"There is nothing in the world that empowers a human being to overcome external difficulties or internal hardships so much as the awareness that one has a task in life." (Viktor E Frankl)