"Scholarship is to study everything that is unimportant, not necessary for survival; all the charming irrelevances of life."
No longer an ‘I’,
All past and future dissolves;
We live breath by breath.
Like an instinct hushed under the everyday,
It leaves you as simply as anything is glimpsed,
Not as reductive as pulling one fractured
Suggestion from any other, or the eye
We take as an instrument, its gradual decoding
Amounting to guesswork; head out, intrigued,
To the re-reading of an upturned mirror,
Where the stones mark the shore
In their stoic poise, allowing you to fathom
Their cool firmness, the tide beating and always
Without motive; be mindful that this cannot outlive you,
The water and the light returning you whole.
"It is fundamental that we should dream, but fundamental to our progress that we know precisely where we are."
The sky is itself;
Only without illusion
Can you know yourself.
"It is essential to remain aware, and not become fixated on the abstract. Seeing ourselves as continually moving toward happiness, toward love, towards something more prosperous than our current selves, we are inclined to finally settle into routine and take on illusions, simply because we have stopped moving."
"Understanding arises from experience. Studying a teaching does not gain the fullness of things; there will be hours when what you have made efforts to learn and consider enters unexpectedly and proves itself. When confronted with them, I have found happiness and suffering in the same moment, and realised that they are not battling one another, but simply exist. The experience of both states contributes to a true understanding of life."
"In poetry, an element of the accidental often occurs, an element the writer did not consciously place in their work. However, look at the towns we have come to inhabit, the people who share them, the point at which we have arrived, our history, our perceived future; there you will see that in creation, there is always a place for the accidental, for anything out of which comes possibility."
Studying Zen should not be confused with practicing Zen, like studying aesthetics should not be confused with being an artist.
-T.P. Kasulis
When you are deluded and full of doubt, even a thousand books of scripture are not enough. When you have realized understanding, even one word is too much.
-Fen-Yang
It has been said that if you could become another person for even a few moments, you would probably become enlightened. So strong is our attachment to the idea of who we are that even the smallest jolt out of it can have an immense effect.
-Langya
Four things come not back: the spoken word, the spent arrow, the past life, and the neglected opportunity.
-Chinese Proverb
The stars remember,
Seas recall from their first tide,
Memories are ours.
