Zen-a-day - July 11

Friday 4 July 2008
These are the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands,
    they are not original with me.
If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing
    or next to nothing.
If they do not enclose everything they are next to
    nothing,
If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle
    they are nothing,
If they are just as close as they are different
    they are nothing.
- Walt Whitman

Saturday 5 July 2008
One day Te-shan gave a sermon, in which he said, "When you question, you commit a fault. Whe you do not, you give offense."
A monk came forward and began to bow, whereupon the master struck him.
"I have just begun my bowing!" said the monk. "Why did you strike me?"
"If I wait for you to open your mouth, all will be over."
- Zen mondo

Sunday 6 July 2008
The believing mind is the Buddha-nature.
- The Nirvana Sutra

Monday 7 July 2008
We must have a beginner's mind, free from possessing anything, a mind that knows wverything is in flowing change. Nothing exists but momentarily in its present form and color. One thing flows into another and cannot be grasped. Before the rain stops we hear a bird. Even under the heavy snow we see snowdrops.
- Shunryu Suzuki

Tuesday 8 July 2008
Realizing one's own real essence is the ultimate expression of enlightenment.
- Hui-neng

Wednesday 9 July 2008
And I would answer you . . . that to prepare the future is only to found the present . . . for the sole true invention is to decipher the present under its incoherent aspects and its contradictory language. . . . You do not have to foresee the future, but to allow it. . . .
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Thursday 10 July 2008
Cn the floating clouds and snow-white storks inhabit this world of ours?
Or you still abideon Wu-chou Mountain now that strangers are coming here?
- Liu Chiang-ch'ing, Farewell to a Buddhist Monk

Friday 11 July 2008
When we are unable to find tranquility within ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere.
- La Rochefoucauld