It is said that there are seventeen hundred koans. Actually, there are as many koans in life as there are individuals, and each individual's life is nothing but koans. —Koryu Osaka
How can you come to know yourself? Never by thinking, always by doing. Try to do your duty, and you'll know right away what you amount to. And what is your duty? Whatever the day calls for.—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Going forward is a matter of ordinariness.—Zen saying
The Emperor's chief carpenter, Ch'ing, once made a music stand so perfect that all who solved it marveled. When Lu asked him to reveal the mystery of his art, Chi'ing demurred, saying, "No mystery, your highness, though there is something. When I am about to make such a stand, I first reduce my mind to absolute quiet. Three days in this condition and I am oblivious to any reward to be gained. Five days, and I am oblivious to any fame to be acquired. Seven days, and I become unconscious of my four limbs and body. Then, with no thought of the Court in mind, all my skill concentrated and all disturbing elements gone, I go into the forest to search for a suitable tree. It contains the stand in my mind's eye, and then I set to work."
—Chuang-Tzu
In these things there is a deep meaning, but if we try to express it, we forget the words.
—Toenmei
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Zen)
# posted by
Gerry Canavan @ 10:25 PM
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