Be moderate in eating and drinking. Mindful of the passing of time, engage yourself in zazen as though saving your head from fire.
DogenRead
If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the importance of seeking truth in one's immediate surroundings rather than looking elsewhere.
Dogen's quote reflects the idea that the search for truth begins at home, in our own lives and experiences. It suggests that before seeking answers in far-off places or abstract concepts, we should first look deeply into our current situation, relationships, and environment. This encourages self-examination and mindfulness, urging us to recognize that clarity and understanding can often be found within ourselves and our immediate context.
Themes
TruthSelf-ExaminationMindfulnessPhilosophyAwareness
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a mindfulness workshop to emphasize the importance of self-awareness.
More from Dogen
All quotes βIn 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.
DogenRead
To start from the self and try to understand all things is delusion. To let the self be awakened by all things is enlightenment.
DogenRead
A fool sees himself as another, but a wise man sees others as himself.
DogenRead
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.
DogenRead
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.
DogenRead
Similar quotes
Bread has been made (indifferent) from potatoes;_x000D_ _x000D_ And galvanism has set some corpses grinning,_x000D_ _x000D_ But has not answer'd like the apparatus_x000D_ _x000D_ Of the Humane Society's beginning,_x000D_ _x000D_ By which men are unsuffocated gratis:_x000D_ _x000D_ What wondrous new machines have late been spinning.
Lord ByronRead
To a hungry man, a piece of bread is the face of God.
Mahatma GandhiRead
Hope, insofar as it is hope of resurrection, is the living contradiction of what it proceeds from and what is placed under the sign of the Cross and death.
Paul RicoeurRead
There is something tragic about the enormous number of young men there are in England at the present moment who start life with perfect profiles, and end by adopting some useful profession.
Oscar WildeRead
Contemporary society has become dry, not for lack of wonders but for lack of wonder.
Gilbert K. ChestertonRead
A few profit - and the many pay. But there is a way to stop it. You can't end it by disarmament conferences. You can't eliminate it by peace parleys at Geneva. Well-meaning but impractical groups can't wipe it out by resolutions. It can be smashed effectively only by taking the profit out of war.
Smedley ButlerRead