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I am neither a savior nor a prophet. I am simply a man amongst you. I am not talking to you from a high peak, from the point of view that I know and you don't know. I am talking to you man to man. All that I am saying to you is that there was a time when I was asleep just as you are asleep, and there is nothing wrong in it. It is perfectly okay with existence- you can sleep for eternity; but it is not good for you.
What you are seeing in your sleep is only ...
Rinzai would shout at his disciples to give them a first experience of their centering. You are both a circumference and a center. You live on the circumference; the shout simply pushes you to the center. Once you experience being at the center you suddenly see the whole world changing. Your eyes are no more the same….
Nansen is a tremendous departure from the past spirituality, accepting secular and sacred as together, one - two aspects of one reality. My love for Nansen is immense because of this understanding that the earth and the sky are not separate - are not separable - and both should be enjoyed. My own understanding is the same. I want the earth and the sky to be together. Only in their togetherness is wholeness; only in their togetherness is a joy, is a fulfillment. ...
Basho is one of the greatest poets in the world. His greatness is not in his poetry - there are far greater poets as far as the composition of the poetry is concerned. His greatness is that his poetry is not just verbiage, is not just putting words together according to a certain pattern, his poetry is an experience. Hyakujo never wrote any poetry. His approach is very prose and direct, and the haikus supplement what is missing in the prose. Basho expressed ...
Isan was a great master as one can be, but he has left behind him neither great scriptures nor great commentaries. His is a great master, but almost forgotten. Who remembers people who have not created great followings, who have not made organized religions, who have not chosen their successors, who have not made their religion a politics, a power in the material world? Isan did none of that. He simply lived silently. Of course thousands of disciples were ...
Dogen is saying, that forms don't change into other forms. Winter remains winter, summer remains summer, but something inner moves from one climate to another climate which is beyond birth and beyond death, which is beyond life, which simply is. You can give it any shape, any form, but you cannot take away its isness. This isness is the greatest discovery of the East. The West has missed it completely.