"Everything
just as it is,
as it is,
as is.
Flowers in bloom.
Nothing to add."

- Robert Aitken Roshi

Not knowing how near the truth is,
People seek it far away, what a pity!
They are like him who, in the midst of water,
Cries in thirst so imploringly.
 
-Hakuin

"The Way is not about knowing... or not-knowing.
Knowing is only delusion,
and not-knowing is merely blank consciousness."

-Nan-Ch'uan

"That day I saw beneath dark clouds
the passing light over the water
and I heard the voice of the world speak out,
I knew then, as I had before
life is no passing memory of what has been
nor the remaining pages in a great book
waiting to be read.

It is the opening of eyes long closed.
It is the vision of far off things
seen for the silence they hold.
It is the heart after years
of secret conversing
speaking out loud in the clear air.

It is Moses in the desert
fallen to his knees before the lit bush.
It is the man throwing away his shoes
as if to enter heaven
and finding himself astonished,
opened at last,
fallen in love with solid ground."

- David Whyte
from 'Songs for Coming Home'
©1984 Many Rivers Press

Groping after what is empty
and chasing echoes
will only fatigue the mind and spirit.
Beyond awakening from a dream,
and then going beyond this awakening,
what remains?

- Deshan (His final words)

“Why are you unhappy?
Because 99.9% of everything you think
And of everything you do
Is for yourself –
And there isn’t one.”

  - Wei Wu Wei

"When you really understand that you are
what you see and know, you do not run around
the countryside thinking, "I am all this!"
There is simply all this..."

-Alan Watts

"Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace."

- Frederick Buechner

"The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal Name."

- Lao-Tzu, Tao Te Ching

"Does the thought "I see", see? Does the thought "I hear", hear? Yet hearing is happening effortlessly, seeing is happening effortlessly; all natural  functioning is happening effortlessly, without any thought being involved!"

- 'Sailor' Bob Adamson

"There's nothing equal to wearing clothes and eating food.
Outside this there are neither Buddhas nor Patriarchs."

- Zenrin Kushû

"Earth, mountains, rivers, hidden in this nothingness.
In this nothingness, earth, mountains, rivers revealed.
Spring flowers, winter snows.
There's no being or non-being, nor denial itself."  

-Saisho

"Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more:  it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing."

- William Shakespeare, Macbeth (V,v,19)

"Yet Natural Being is such an ordinary and gentle constant. When it is seen it is. When it is avoided it is. It requires no effort and demands no standards. Being timeless there is no path to tread, no debt to pay. When this is heard and confusion collapses, when the contraction of struggling to get something falls away and the vibrant energy of being aliveness becomes apparent, something else is seen, very naturally of course, because it is already all that is."

- Tony Parsons

“When I heard the sound of
the bell ringing, there was no I,
and no bell, just the ringing.”

- Zen Master

“In the gap between subject and object lies the entire misery of humankind.”

- J. Krishnamurti

"So waiting, I have won from you the end: God's presence in each element."

- Goethe

“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.”

-  Galatians 2:20

"Things are always changing, so nothing can be yours."

- Shunryu Suzuki

"Is the abode of God anywhere but in the earth, sea, sky, air and virtue? Why  do we seek the heavenly ones beyond? Whatever you see, and whatever you touch,  that is God."

- Lucan

“We eat, excrete, sleep, and get up; This is our world.
All we have to do after that – Is to die.”

- Ikkyu

“Nothing is left to you at this moment but to have a good laugh.”

- Zen Master

When Yun-men was asked for the ultimate secret of Buddhism,
he replied, “Dumpling!”

- Zen Story

“Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

- Matthew 10:34-39

“What we observe as material bodies and forces are nothing but shapes and  variations in the structure of space. Particles are just schaumkommen  (appearances).The world is given to me only once, not one existing and one  perceived. Subject and object are only one. The barrier between them cannot be said to have broken down as a result of recent experience in the physical  sciences, for this barrier does not exist.’

- Erwin Schrodinger

"If you see Buddha, kill him."

- Zen saying.

'A human being... experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something  separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.  This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal  desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to  free ourselves from this prison ...'

- Albert Einstein

“What will be left of all the fearing and wanting associated with your  problematic life situation that every day takes up most of your attention? A  dash, one or two inches long, between the date of birth and date of death on  your gravestone.”

- Eckhart Tolle

"There is neither creation nor destruction,
Neither destiny nor free-will;
Neither path nor achievement;
This is the final truth."

- Ramana Maharshi

"What is, right now, is perfection – presence has not arisen from the past and is not leading to the future. All appears presently as a play in awareness. The apparently separate individual may be involved with self-improvement, spiritual life or anything else throughout the unfolding of that life. But only the clarity of what You really are undermines the search for awakening or for being anything other than what already is."

- Nathan Gill

"This slowly drifting cloud is pitiful!
What dreamwalkers we all are!
Awakened, the one great truth:
Black rain on the temple roof."

- Dogen

When the great Zen master Fa-ch'ang was dying, a squirrel screeched out on the  roof."It's just this," he said, "and nothing more."

- Zen story

"Seeing into nothingness is the true seeing, the eternal seeing."

-Shen-Hui.

"Boundary lines, of any type, are never found in the real world itself, but  only in the imagination of the mapmakers. "

- Ken Wilber

"When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly..."

- Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu

"The Kingdom will not come while people watch for it; they will not say 'Look,  here it is!' or 'Look, there it is!', but the Kingdom of the Father is spread  out over the earth, and men do not see it."

- Jesus, Gospel of Thomas

"Many people are afraid to empty their minds lest they may plunge into the  void. They do not know that their own mind IS the void."

- Huang Po

"And everywhere, infinite options, infinite possibilities. An infinity, and at  the same time, zero. We try to scoop it all up in our hands, and what we get  is a handful of zero."

- Haruki Murakami, The Elephant Vanishes

"Ye suffer from yourselves. None else compels,
None other holds you that ye live and die,
And whirl upon the wheel, and hug and kiss
Its spokes of agony"
            

- The Light of Asia , Edwin Arnold

"While alive,
Be a dead man;
Thoroughly dead;
And act as you will,
And all will be good."

- Bunan

"Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.
After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water." 

- Wu Li

"I confused things with their names. That is belief."

- Jean-Paul Sartre

'"Jesus said to them, 'When you make the two one, and when you make the inside  like the outside and the outside like the inside... then will you enter the  Kingdom.' 

- Gospel of Thomas

"Clear water has no taste.
The tongue has no bone.
In complete stillness a stone girl is dancing."

- Seung Sahn, Zen master.

" Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is  peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality IS just to peel the potatoes."

- Alan Watts.

"I have seen the Bird of Paradise, she has spread herself before me, and I shall never be the same again. There is nothing to be afraid of. Nothing.  Exactly. The Life I am trying to grasp is the me that is trying to grasp it."

- R.D.Laing, The Bird Of Paradise

"Biting into an apple as I sit before peonies - that's how I'll die."

- Shiki

"Man plans, and God laughs."

- Yiddish Proverb

"All the Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing
but the One Mind, beside which nothing exists.
It is like the boundless void which cannot be
fathomed or measured.
It is that which you see before you."

- Huang Po