Taisen Deshimaru Quotes
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Zen is not a particular state but the normal state: silent, peaceful, unagitated. In Zazen neither intention, analysis, specific effort nor imagination take place. It's enough just to be without hypocrisy, dogmatism, arrogance - embracing all opposites.
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To receive everything, one must open one's hands and give.
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Think with your whole body.
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Harmonizing opposites by going back to their source is the distinctive quality of the Zen attitude, the Middle Way: embracing contradictions, making a synthesis of them, achieving balance.
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Time is not a line, but a series of now-points.
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Train the body and develop stamina and endurance. But the spirit of competition and power that presides over them is not good, it reflects a distorted vision of life. The root of the martial arts is not there.
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If you have a glass full of liquid you can discourse forever on its qualities, discuss whether it is cold, warm, whether it is really and truly composed of H-2-O, or even mineral water, or saki. Meditation is Drinking it!
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We should learn to think with our fingers.
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If you are not happy here and now, you never will be.
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You must not take out your sword because if you try to kill someone, you must die for it yourself. What you must do instead is kill yourself, kill your own mind.
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We feel our shell keeps us safe, but it crushes us and others, and keeps out light and sun.
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Nobody today is normal, everybody is a little bit crazy or unbalanced, people's minds are running all the time. Their perceptions of the world are partial, incomplete. They are eaten alive by their egos. They think they see, but they are mistaken; all they do is project their madness, their world, upon the world. There is no clarity, no wisdom in that!
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You have to practice until you die.
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You must concentrate upon and consecrate yourself wholly to each day, as though a fire were raging in your hair.
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What is called zazen is sitting on a zafu [pillow] in a quiet room, absolutely still, in the exact and proper position and without uttering a word, the mind empty of any thought, good or wicked. It is continuing to sit peacefully, facing a wall, and nothing more. Every day.
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In a fight between a strong technique and a strong body, technique will prevail. In a fight between a strong mind and a strong technique, mind will prevail, because it will find the weak point.
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The body moves naturally, automatically, without any personal intervention or awareness. If we think too much, our actions become slow and hesitant.
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Human beings are afraid of dying. They are always running after something: money, honor, and pleasure. But if you had to die now, what would you want?
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During zazen, brain and consciousness become pure. It's exactly like muddy water left to stand in a glass. Little by little, the sediment sinks to the bottom and the water becomes pure.
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You are the strongest and the others keep their distance. It is no longer necessary to win victories over them.
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Keep your hands open, and all the sands of the desert can pass through them. Close them, and all you can feel is a bit of grit.
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If we achieve satori and the satori shows, like a bit of dogshit stuck to the top of our nose, that is not so good.
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To practice Zen or the Martial Arts, you must live intensely, wholeheartedly, without reserve - as if you might die in the next instant