Be moderate in eating and drinking. Mindful of the passing of time, engage yourself in zazen as though saving your head from fire.
DogenRead
Does a dragon still sing from within a withered tree?
Interpretation
This quote questions whether vitality and creativity can exist even in seemingly lifeless circumstances.
Dogen's quote explores the concept of inner potential and the existence of life and creativity within situations that appear barren or devoid of vitality. It invites reflection on the possibility that even in times of despair or decay, a spark of originality or a profound essence might still persist, waiting to be rediscovered or expressed.
In practice
In a creative writing workshop, this quote could inspire participants to find their voice despite any struggles they face.
Be moderate in eating and drinking. Mindful of the passing of time, engage yourself in zazen as though saving your head from fire.
In the assemblies of the enlightened ones there have been many cases of mastering the Way bringing forth the heart of plants and trees; this is what awakening the mind for enlightenment is like. The fifth patriarch of Zen was once a pine-planting wayfarer; Rinzai worked on planting cedars and pines on Mount Obaku. . . . Working with plants, trees, fences and walls, if they practice sincerely they will attain enlightenment.
To start from the self and try to understand all things is delusion. To let the self be awakened by all things is enlightenment.
A fool sees himself as another, but a wise man sees others as himself.
Do not travel to other dusty lands, forsaking your own sitting place; if you cannot find the truth where you are now, you will never find it.
Do no harmful actions, do not become attached to the cycle of death and rebirth, show kindness, respect the old and have compassion for the young, do not have a heart that rejects or a heart that covets and have no worry or sadness in your heart. This is what is called enlightenment. Do not seek it elsewhere.
For the butterfly, mating and propagation involve the sacrifice of life, for the human being, the sacrifice of beauty.
Death is a graduation. When we're taught all the things we came to teach, learned all the things we came to learn, then we're allowed to graduate.
Slaughter and justice cannot dwell together.
It is not man who is the enemy of the human species. It is the irrational; it is the spiritual when it is divorced from the material; from the lesson in one beating heart or one bleeding vein.
As every student in Philosophy 101 learns, nothing can force me to believe that anyone except me is conscious. This power to deny that other people have feelings is not just an academic exercise but an all-too-common vice, as we see in the long history of human cruelty.
The journalistic 'I' is an overreliable narrator, a functionary to whom crucial tasks of narration and argument and tone have been entrusted, an ad hoc creation, like the chorus of Greek tragedy. He is an emblematic figure, an embodiment of the idea of the dispassionate observer of life.
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