Great Throughts Treasury

"When hungry I eat; when tired, I sleep. Fools laugh at me. The wise understand."

"In Buddhism there is no place for using effort. Just be ordinary and nothing special. Eat your food, move your bowels, pass water, and when you're tired go and lie down. The ignorant will laugh at me, but the wise will understand."

"Do not be deceived. If you turn to the outside, there is no Dharma; neither is there anything to be obtained from the inside."

"Do not search for anything outside, for all is idle dust, and you cannot discern the false from the true."

"Dreams and phantoms, flowers in the empty sky; why trouble yourself to seize them?"

"In the Zen schools they say there were a way to be practiced, and a truth to be realized. Tell me, which truth is there realized, which way practiced? What are you missing in the way you are currently functioning? What do you want to correct?"

"Don't depend on anything, wherever you are, just there is realization. Arising circumstances cannot change you. Even when you have bad habits, you will be free of them without further doing something about them."

"Followers of the Way, do you want to attain this Dharma? Then it is indeed necessary to become a man who has nothing further to seek."

"Followers of the Way, you each have a father and mother. So what more do you seek? Turn round and look into yourselves."

"I do not have any teaching, which I could give humans; I do only heal defects and untie chains."

"I tell you this: There is no Buddha, no Dharma, no training and no realization. What are you so hotly chasing? Putting a head on top of your head, you blind fools? Your head is right where it should be. What are you lacking?"

"If you can stop your heart from its ceaseless running after wisps of the will, you will not be different from the Buddha and patriarchs."

"If you see the Buddha, kill him."

"Followers of the Way, do not trust yourselves to a companion who is only a phantom and a dream (the body). Sooner or later it will return to impermanence."

"If you chase wildly around, wanting to follow others, even after three great world ages you will only end up by returning to birth and death. Better it is to have nothing further to seek, and crossing one"

"Just let thinking become calm, and don't seek anymore in the outside. Whatever appears to you, to that direct your awareness; trust that what is just working in you, and there will be nothing anymore about which you had to worry."

"That is a big error. If you think a state of motionless clarity were Zen, you accept ignorance as your slave-master."

"There are blind naked-heads, who, after having eaten enough, practice zazen; they stop forming thoughts that they don't arise, they flee the disturbance of the world and seek the silence. This is a deviating form of Zen."

"There are disciples who, being in chains, visit a teacher who then gives them yet another chain. The disciples, unable to differentiate, are delighted. That is called: A guest looks at another one."

"There is no Dharma outside the heart, nor anything to find inside. So what are you looking for?"

"The Three Worlds are the heart only; the ten thousand things are but its differentiation."

"Movement and silence are two states. The independent master can use movement and silence freely."

"Rather than attaching yourselves to my words, better to calm down and seek nothing further. Do not cling to what has come to be (the past), nor hanker after what has not yet come to be (the future). This is better than a ten year"

"It reacts fast and flexible, but one cannot tell where it is - when you seek it, you withdraw from it, when you want to reach it, you just turn away from it more and more."

"There is a Buddhism-obsession being mixed with the essence... When you love the holy and despise the ordinary, you are still swimming in the ocean of delusion."

"Whatever you are seeking, all becomes suffering. It is better to have nothing further to seek."

"When I say there is nothing outside, then disciples who don't understand me think the inside were meant; therefore they sit silently and think this were Zen."

"You are taking the words of these ordinary Zen-teachers for the true way; you think that Zen-teachers cannot be understood and that you as ordinary humans could not risk to look critically at the ancient ones. When you hold this habit for your whole lifetime, despite what your view teaches you, you are blind."

"When you try to grasp Zen in movement, it escapes into silence. When you try to grasp Zen in silence, it escapes into movement. It is like a fish in a source, who makes waves and dances at will."

"Young novices, who don't yet understand, immediately believe those blinders, and let them talk things which do only put humans in chains."

"When you meet a master swordsman, show him your sword. When you meet a man who is not a poet, do not show him your poem."

"When you want to be free, recognize your true self. It has no form, no appearance, no root, no base, no place, but it is fresh and vivid."

"Do not search for anything outside, for all is idle dust, and you cannot discern the false from the true."

"Followers of the Way, do not trust yourselves to a companion who is only a phantom and a dream (the body). Sooner or later it will return to impermanence."

"Do not be deceived. If you turn to the outside, there is no Dharma; neither is there anything to be obtained from the inside."

"Followers of the Way, do you want to attain this Dharma? Then it is indeed necessary to become a man who has nothing further to seek."

"Don't depend on anything, wherever you are, just there is realization. Arising circumstances cannot change you. Even when you have bad habits, you will be free of them without further doing something about them."

"Dreams and phantoms, flowers in the empty sky; why trouble yourself to seize them?"

"Followers of the Way, you each have a father and mother. So what more do you seek? Turn round and look into yourselves."

"I tell you this: There is no Buddha, no Dharma, no training and no realization. What are you so hotly chasing? Putting a head on top of your head, you blind fools? Your head is right where it should be. What are you lacking?"

"I do not have any teaching, which I could give humans; I do only heal defects and untie chains."

"If you can stop your heart from its ceaseless running after wisps of the will, you will not be different from the Buddha and patriarchs."

"If you see the Buddha, kill him."

"In the Zen schools they say there were a way to be practiced, and a truth to be realized. Tell me, which truth is there realized, which way practiced? What are you missing in the way you are currently functioning? What do you want to correct?"

"If you chase wildly around, wanting to follow others, even after three great world ages you will only end up by returning to birth and death. Better it is to have nothing further to seek, and crossing one"

"Movement and silence are two states. The independent master can use movement and silence freely."

"Just let thinking become calm, and don't seek anymore in the outside. Whatever appears to you, to that direct your awareness; trust that what is just working in you, and there will be nothing anymore about which you had to worry."

"It reacts fast and flexible, but one cannot tell where it is - when you seek it, you withdraw from it, when you want to reach it, you just turn away from it more and more."

"Rather than attaching yourselves to my words, better to calm down and seek nothing further. Do not cling to what has come to be (the past), nor hanker after what has not yet come to be (the future). This is better than a ten year"

"That is a big error. If you think a state of motionless clarity were Zen, you accept ignorance as your slave-master."