Dogen Quotes

83 quotes in 1037 categories

• You should stop searching for phrases and chasing after words. Take the backward step and turn the light inward. Your body-mind of itself will drop…
• Forgetting oneself is opening oneself
• One must be deeply aware of the impermanence of the world.
• If we seek the Buddha outside the mind, the Buddha changes into a devil.
• Life and death are nothing but the mind. Years, months, days, and hours are nothing but the mind. Dreams, illusions, and mirages are nothing but…
• Do not be amazed by the true dragon.
• Studying the Buddha way is studying oneself. Studying oneself is forgetting oneself. Forgetting oneself is being enlightened by all things. Being enlightened by all things…
• All that's visible springs from causes intimate to you. While walking, sitting, lying down, the body itself is complete truth. If someone asks the inner…
• Refraining from all evil, not clinging to birth and death, working in deep compassion for all sentient beings, respecting those over you and pitying those…
• In autumn even though I may see it again, how can I sleep with the moon this evening?
• Learn the backward step that turns your light inward to illuminate your self. Body and mind of themselves will drop away, and your original face…
• When mountains and waters are painted, blue, green, and red paints are used, strange rocks and wondrous stones are used, the four jewels and the…
• Cease from practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words, and following after speech.
• When a buddha is painted, not only a clay altar or lump of earth is used, but the thirty-two marks, a blade of grass, and…
• When you paint Spring, do not paint willows, plums, peaches, or apricots - just paint Spring.
• The coming and going of birth and death is a painting. Unsurpassed enlightenment is a painting. The entire phenomenal universe and the empty sky are…
• A flower falls, even though we love it; and a weed grows, even though we do not love it.
• Do not follow the ideas of others, but learn to listen to the voice within yourself. Your body and mind will become clear and you…
• If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?
• You should study not only that you become a mother when your child is born, but also that you become a child.

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