Dogen Quotes

“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.”
― Dōgen

“What is personal death?

Asking this question and pausing to look inward - isn't personal death a concept? Isn't there a thought-and-picture series going on in the brain? These scenes of personal ending take place solely in the imagination, and yet they trigger great mental ad physical distress - thinking of one's cherished attachments an their sudden, irreversible termination.

Similarly, if there is 'pain when I let some of the beauty of life in' - isn't this pain the result of thinking, 'I won't be here any longer to enjoy this beauty?' Or, 'No one will be around and no beauty left to be enjoyed if there is total nuclear devastation.'

Apart from the horrendous tragedy of human warfare - why is there this fear of 'me' not continuing? Is it because I don't realize that all my fear and trembling is for an image? Because I really believe that this image is myself?

In the midst of this vast, unfathomable, ever-changing, dying, and renewing flow of life, the human brain is ceaselessly engaged in trying to fix for itself a state of permanency and certainty. Having the capacity to think and form pictures of ourselves, to remember them and become deeply attached to them, we take this world of pictures and ideas for real. We thoroughly believe in the reality of the picture story of our personal life. We are totally identified with it and want it to go on forever. The idea of "forever" is itself an invention of the human brain. Forever is a dream.

Questioning beyond all thoughts, images, memories, and beliefs, questioning profoundly into the utter darkness of not-knowing, the realization may suddenly dawn that one is nothing at all - nothing - that all one has been holding on to are pictures and dreams. Being nothing is being everything. It is wholeness. Compassion. It is the ending of separation, fear, and sorrow.

Is there pain when no one is there to hold on?

There is beauty where there is no "me".”
― Toni Packer, The Work of This Moment

“But do not ask me where I am going,
As I travel in this limitless world,
Where every step I take is my home.
– Dogen Zenji”
― Steven Heine, The Zen Poetry of Dogen: Verses from the Mountain of Eternal Peace

“If you try to examine your life analytically, asking yourself who you are, finally you will realize that there is something you cannot reach. You don’t know what it is, but you feel the presence of something you want to connect with. This is sometimes called the absolute. Buddha and Dogen Zenji say true self. Christians say God.”
― Dainin Katagiri, Each Moment Is the Universe: Zen and the Way of Being Time

“[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, Buddhism Plain & Simple: The Practice of Being Aware, Right Now, Every Day

“«Un antiguo sabio dijo: "una persona buena es como caminar bajo la niebla y la llovizna, aunque la ropa no se empape se va volviendo cada vez más húmeda."» (4-4, Shobogenzo)”
― Dogen Zenji, Eihei, Shobogenzo: Zen Essays by Dogen

“I never entered a monastery as a full-time live-in monk, which many people consider the only way to practice what Dōgen preached. But this would ignore the fact that Dōgen taught a number of lay students throughout his life and, indeed, recommended zazen as a daily practice not only for those who live in monasteries but also to anyone interested in self-discovery.”
― Brad Warner, Don't Be a Jerk: And Other Practical Advice from Dogen, Japan's Greatest Zen Master

“Dōgen was not writing for an audience full of people with PhDs in Buddhist studies.”
― Brad Warner, Don't Be a Jerk: And Other Practical Advice from Dogen, Japan's Greatest Zen Master

“Dōgen's big question when he was a young monk was this: If Buddhism teaches that we're all perfect just as we are — and it does teach that — then why do we have to undergo training? A whole lot of Shōbōgenzō is Dōgen's attempt to answer that question.”
― Brad Warner, Don't Be a Jerk: And Other Practical Advice from Dogen, Japan's Greatest Zen Master

“In his earlier writings Dōgen is adamant that Zen practice and realization is available to anyone, regardless of whether they are monastics or laypeople, male or female, old or young, clever or stupid. He was extremely progressive in his attitude toward women, which in Japan is woefully behind the egalitarian ideals of the West, even today. Yet in his later writings Dōgen seems to have changed his mind and started to believe that only temple-bound monks — male and female, so at least he didn't change his mind about that part — could possibly attain the Buddhist truth.”
― Brad Warner, Don't Be a Jerk: And Other Practical Advice from Dogen, Japan's Greatest Zen Master

“Dogen-zenji said, "To give is nonattachment." That is, just not to attach to anything is to give.”
― Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice

“The earliest attempt to form an independent Zen group in Japan seems to have been led by Nōnin, who taught his form of Zen at Sanbōji (a Tendai temple in Settsu) during the latter part of the twelfth century. Because Nōnin's following, which styled itself the Darumashū (after Daruma, i.e., Bodhidharma, the semilegendary founder of the Chinese Ch'an school), failed to secure a permanent institutional base, scholars had not fully realized Nōnin's importance until recently. As early as 1272, however, less than eighty years after Nōnin's death, Nichiren had correctly identified Nōnin as the pioneer leader of the new Zen groups. Eisai, a contemporary of Nōnin, also founded several new centers for Zen practice, the most important of which was Kenninji in Kyoto. In contrast to Nōnin, who had never left Japan, Eisai had the benefit of two extended trips to China during which he could observe Chinese Ch'an (Jpn. Zen) teachers first hand. The third important early Zen leader in Japan was Dōgen, the founder of Japan's Sōtō school. Dōgen had entered Eisai's Kenninji in 1217 and, like Eisai, also traveled to China for firsthand study. Unlike Eisai (or Nōnin), after his return to Japan Dōgen attempted to establish the monastic structures he found in China. Dōgen's monasteries, Kōshōji (Dōgen's residence during 1230–1243) and Eiheiji (1244–1253), were the first in Japan to include a monks' hall (sōdō) within which Zen monks lived and meditated according to Chinese-style monastic regulations.”
― William M. Bodiford, Sōtō Zen in Medieval Japan