From ‘On Respectful Bowing Will Secure the Very Marrow of the Way’, in the Shōbōgenzō, by Eihei Dogen

“you should discard your myriad involvements, cease frittering away your time, and devote yourself to diligently practicing the Way. You should do your training and practice, even though you may still be attached to discriminatory thinking; you should do your training and practice, even if you have gone beyond discriminatory thinking; you should do your training and practice, even though you may be half-hearted in the attempt. Study with urgency, as though you were extinguishing a fire on your head: study with joy and hopefulness, as though you were standing on tiptoes.

[…]

Securing the Marrow and communicating the Dharma inevitably depend on sincere devotion and a trusting heart. Sincerity and trust do not in the least come from outside ourselves, nor is there any place within from which they emerge. Simply, beyond doubt, those who have done this emphasize the Dharma and play down themselves. These people flee society’s world and make the Path their dwelling place.”

From ‘On Respectful Bowing Will Secure the Very Marrow of the Way’, in the Shōbōgenzō, by Eihei Dogen

From ‘Bendōwa’ (辨道話 – Discourse on the Practice of the Way), in the Shōbōgenzō, by Eihei Dogen

“From the start of your training under a wise master, have no recourse to incense offerings, prostrations, recitation of buddha names, repentances, or sutra reading. Just sit in meditation and attain the dropping off of mind and body.”

From ‘Bendōwa’ (辨道話 – Discourse on the Practice of the Way), in the Shōbōgenzō, by Eihei Dogen

from ‘The World We Have’, by Thich Nhat Hanh

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“If we don’t know how to stop our over-consumption, then the death of our civilization will surely come more quickly. We can slow this process by stopping and being mindful, but the only way to do this is to accept the eventual death of this civilization, just as we accept the death of our own physical form. Acceptance is made possible when we know that deep down our true nature is the nature of no-birth and no-death”

from ‘The World We Have’, by Thich Nhat Hanh

from T.S. Eliot’s ‘Little Gidding’ (with special reference to Julian of Norwich)

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“Whatever we inherit from the fortunate
We have taken from the defeated
What they had to leave us – a symbol:
A symbol perfected in death.
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
By the purification of the motive
In the ground of our beseeching.”

from T.S. Eliot’s ‘Little Gidding’ (with special reference to Julian of Norwich)