Michael

“Breaking together with conflict is the process by which we create peace. When we break together and live relationally with conflict, resolved or not, we create peace. We must continually call ourselves back to our higher aspiration of breaking together in order to transform our world together.”
― Larry Yang, Awakening Together: The Spiritual Practice of Inclusivity and Community

“A bodhisattva protects the spirit of this vow the way people protect their beloved children. This vow is very fragile: its life is often hanging by a thin thread. You may clearly see that being kind to others would end your problems, and then a moment later someone is rude to you, and you forget all about being kind. In a sense this whole book is about how to protect and bring the spirit of compassion to complete maturity by being upright, which is to receive, practice, and transmit the great bodhisattva”
― Tenshin Reb Anderson, Being Upright: Zen Meditation and Bodhisattva Precepts

“In many ways, Keizan’s Zen is a continuation of the Zen of the founder of Japanese Soto Zen, Dogen—and this should not be particularly surprising. Yet, the two men were different individuals with different teaching methods and different emphases in their writings. In the course of documenting the patriarchal succession over the generations, Keizan centers his talks primarily on two topics. One is the necessity of being totally committed to achieving awakening, of taking the Zen life most seriously, and of making a supreme effort in Zen practice. This is also a focal point in Dogen’s writing, and both men, as Zen patriarchs, are equally concerned with the training of monks and the selection of successors. The second emphasis, and, indeed, the overwhelmingly central focal point of all these chapters, is the Light of the title of the work. It is this light that is transmitted from master to disciple as the disciple discovers this light within himself. In fact, once the light is discovered, this itself is the transmission. The light is one’s Buddha nature or True Self.”
― Francis Harold Cook, The Record of Transmitting the Light: Zen Master Keizan's Denkoroku

“Experiencing our interconnection and interpenetrating relationship with all beings is the genesis of our happiness. Even the most mundane task becomes meaningful and fulfilling when we feel a universal connection with the totality of being.”
― Shinshu Roberts, Being-Time: A Practitioner's Guide to Dogen's Shobogenzo Uji