An Introduction to Zen Buddhism

who knew how to apply the principles of their faith to the ever-varying conditions of life and to the religious needs of the people. (Location 366)

Whatever teachings there are in Zen, they come out of one’s own mind. We teach ourselves; Zen merely points the way. (Location 470)

This getting into the real nature of one’s own mind or soul is the fundamental object of Zen Buddhism. (Location 504)

“When the mind is absolutely pure, you have a purified mind, and a mind is said to be absolutely pure when it is above purity and impurity. You want to know how this is to be realized? Have your mind thoroughly void in all conditions, then you will have purity. But when this is attained, do not harbour any thought of it, or you get non-purity. Again, when this state of non-purity is attained, do not harbour any thought of it, and you are free of non-purity. This is absolute purity.” (Location 774)

This breaking up of the tyranny of name and logic is at the same time spiritual emancipation; (Location 839)

So is ethics, which is the application of logic to the facts of life. An ethical man performs acts of service which are praiseworthy, but he is all the time conscious of them, and, moreover, he may often be thinking of some future reward. (Location 903)

Exclusion and limitation, which after all are the same thing, murder the soul; for is it not the life of the soul that lives in perfect freedom and in perfect unity? (Location 952)

Zen must never be confused with naturalism or libertinism, which means to follow one’s natural bent without questioning its origin and value. (Location 1269)

“For instance, when you are hungry or thirsty, my eating of food or drinking will not fill your stomach; you must eat and drink for yourself. When you want to respond to the calls of nature you must take care of yourself, for I cannot be of any use to you. And then it will be nobody else but yourself that will carry your body along this highway.” (Location 1345)

If satori is amenable to analysis in the sense that by so doing it becomes perfectly clear to another who has never had it, that satori will be no satori. For a satori turned into a concept ceases to be itself; and there will no more be a Zen experience. (Location 1370)

By Dhyana is generally understood a kind of meditation or contemplation directed toward some fixed thought; in Hinayana Buddhism it was the thought of transiency, while in the Mahayana it was more often the doctrine of emptiness. (Location 1442)