Van Sanders

“Bowing helps to eliminate our self-centered ideas. This is not so easy. It is difficult to get rid of these ideas, and bowing is a very valuable practice. The result is not the point; it is the effort to improve ourselves that is valuable. There is no end to this practice.”
― Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice

“Yoda Sutra # 9   That which is, see you do not; that which you want to see is that which you see. Not seeing, merely projecting, you are.   Yoda Sutra # 10   Projecting your fantasies, dreams, expectations on life — stop. Forget that completely. One and single has to be the whole effort, and that is: how to be awake?”
― Phalachandra Varanasi, Yoda Sutras

“A master who cannot bow to his disciple cannot bow to Buddha.”
― Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice

“I think that many confuse ‘applicability’ with ‘allegory’; but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings