Zen-a-day - June 24

Friday 20 June 2008
Besides the noble art of gettingthings done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials.
- Lin Yutang

Saturday 21 June 2008
As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sunday 22 June 2008
- From the age of six I had a mania for drawing the form of things. By the time I was fifty, I had published an infinity of designs, but all that I have produced before the age of seventy is not worth taking into account. At seventy-three I have learned a little about the real structure of nature, of animals, plants, birds, fishes, and insects. In consequence, when I am eightly, I shall have made more progress, at ninetly I shall pnenetrate the mystery of things, at a hundred I shall have reached a marvelous stage, and when I am a hundred and ten, everything I do, be it a dot or a line, will be alive.
- Hokusai

Monday 23 June 2008
An American seeker: "If you follow any way, you will never get there; and if you do not follow any way, you will never get there. So one faces a dilemma."
Hisamatsu: "Let the dilemma be your way!"
- Zen mondo

Tuesday 24 June 2008
One day Zen master Kyong Ho went for a walk in the country with a young student, Yng Song Sunim, who was known for his kindness. They came to a stand by the road where a group of boys had dozens and sozens of frogs on a string, and were selling them.
Yong Song implored his teacher to take a rest, and then went back to the boys and bought all the frogs and set them free. After the last of the frogs hopped away, Yong Song smiled to himself and went to his master and said, "How fortunate that we came this way. I just saved all those frogs!"
"That is wonderful," said Kyong Ho, "but you're going straight to hell."
"What?" Yong Song was startled to hear this. "I freed the frogs. Why should I go to hell?"
"You already understand."
"No, I don't. Please teach me," begged Yong Song.
"You say 'I' saved those frogs. But this 'I' doesn't exist. Making thi 'I' is a big mistake. keep that 'I-me' mind, and you're going to hell like an arrow."
- Zen mondo