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> 36 quotes tagged "no-self"
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Eka said to Bodhidharma, 'My mind is not at peace. Please pacify my mind.' Bodhidharma said, 'Bring me your mind and I will pacify it.' Eka said, 'I have searched for my mind, but I cannot find it.' Bodhidharma said, 'There, I have pacified your mind.'Traditional Zen
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Hakuin would say to his students, 'In clapping both hands a sound is heard. What is the sound of one hand?'Traditional Zen
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Firewood becomes ash, and it does not become firewood again. Yet do not suppose that the ash is future and the firewood past.Shobogenzo
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Yantou asked his brother monks, 'Every sutra teaches that all things return to the One. Where does the One return to?' Dongshan said, 'When I was in Qingzhou, I made a robe that weighed seven pounds.'Blue Cliff Record, Case 1
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A monk asked, 'Why did Bodhidharma come from the West?' Zhaozhou said, 'The cypress tree in the courtyard.'Blue Cliff Record
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Linji said, 'There is a true person of no rank constantly going in and out through the gates of your face. Those who have not yet proved it, look! Look!'Linji Yulu
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A monk asked Baling, 'What is the Blown Hair Sword?' Baling said, 'Each branch of coral holds up the moon.'Blue Cliff Record, Case 13
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A monk asked Longya, 'The physical body decays. What is the indestructible body of reality?' Longya said, 'The mountain flowers bloom like brocade, the valley streams are brimming blue.'Traditional Zen
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A monk asked Dizang, 'Where can I find the place to enter?' Dizang said, 'Can you hear the sound of the valley stream?' The monk said, 'Yes, I can hear it.' Dizang said, 'Enter there.'Traditional Zen
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Fayan said, 'When there's a hair's breadth of difference, it is like the distance between heaven and earth.'Traditional Zen
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We seldom realize, for example that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent, but which were given to us by our society.Alan Watts
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Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence.Alan Watts
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What I am really saying is that you don't need to do anything, because if you see yourself in the correct way, you are all as much extraordinary phenomenon of nature as trees, clouds, the patterns in running water, the flickering of fire, the arrangement of the stars, and the form of a galaxy. You are all just like that, and there is nothing wrong with you at all.Alan Watts
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How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself anything less than a god.Alan Watts
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Like too much alcohol, self-consciousness makes us see ourselves double, and we make the double image for two selves – mental and material, controlling and controlled, reflective and spontaneous. Thus instead of suffering we suffer about suffering, and suffer about suffering about suffering.Alan Watts
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What happens if you know that there is nothing you can do to be better? It's kind of a relief, isn't it? You say 'Well, now what do I do?' When you are freed from being out to improve yourself, your own nature will begin to take over.Alan Watts
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The word 'person' comes from the latin word 'persona' which referred to the masks worn by actors in which sound would come through. The 'person' is the mask — the role you're playing. And all of your friends and relations and teachers are busy telling you who you are and what your role in life is.Alan Watts
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Everyone has love, but it can only come out when he is convinced of the impossibility and the frustration of trying to love himself. This conviction will not come through condemnations, through hating oneself, through calling self love bad names in the universe. It comes only in the awareness that one has no self to love.Alan Watts
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We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness.Thich Nhat Hanh
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The Wave does not need to die to become water. She is already water.Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear
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When you do something, you should burn yourself completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
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Strictly speaking, there are no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity.Shunryu Suzuki
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To study the self is to forget the self.Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
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Cold Mountain is a house Without beams or walls. The six doors left and right are open, The hall is blue sky.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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Today I sat before the cliff, Sat a long time till mist and clouds arose. Mist and clouds — a moment of affairs. This old man — what have they to do with me?Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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Before thinking good and evil, what is your original face?Blue Cliff Record — Huineng
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A monk asked Zhaozhou, 'Does a dog have Buddha nature?' Zhaozhou said, 'Mu.'Book of Serenity, Case 18 — Zhaozhou's Dog
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The whole world is medicine. What am I?Blue Cliff Record, Case 87 — Yunmen's Medicine and Sickness
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Our original nature is, in highest truth, devoid of any atom of objectivity. It is void, omnipresent, silent, pure; it is glorious and mysterious peaceful joy — and that is all.Huang Po, The Zen Teaching of Huang Po, tr. John Blofeld
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Beginners in Zen are afraid of the void. They run away from it and do not realize that the void is themselves.Huang Po
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The body is a borrowed house — who knows how long the loan will last? The mind is an untethered boat, drifting on whatever water comes. Do not hold tightly to either. The house will be reclaimed. The boat will find its own shore.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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Rising before dawn, I carry water from the lower spring. The mountain does not know my name. The spring does not know my name. The bucket does not know my name. Only my feet know the path — and they have forgotten the rest.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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Looking back on my youth: every ambition, a knot tied for no reason. Every desire, a door opened onto another door. Now I sit in the one room that has no door and find I have been here the whole time.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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Born into this cage of flesh and bone, carrying it up the mountain every day. The cage does not complain. I do not complain about the cage. We have reached an understanding.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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Life and death are one road. I do not know the exact border crossing. But I know the customs officers ask for nothing you can carry.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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I have no mirror here. My face is reflected in the stream but the stream moves and my face moves with it. A moving face — this is a good face. A fixed face is what they put on a tomb.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems