"In the West, God, the world, and I are three entities. Therefore you have a God to please, a world to conquer, and most of all, you have many peers to compete with through your whole life. In the East, God, the world, and I are all rolled together into one, the big One."
"We humans are social beings. We come into the world as the result of others’ actions. We survive here in dependence on others. Whether we like it or not, there is hardly a moment of our lives in which we do not benefit from others’ activities. For this reason it is hardly surprising that most of our happiness arises in the context of our relationships with others. Nor is it so remarkable that our greatest joy should come when we are motivated by concern for others. But that is not all. We find that not only do altruistic actions bring about happiness, but they also lessen our experience of suffering. Here I am not suggesting that the individual whose actions are motivated by the wish to bring others happiness necessarily meets with less misfortune than the one who does not. Sickness, old age, mishaps of one sort or another are the same for us all. But the sufferings which undermine our internal peace—anxiety, doubt, disappointment—these are definitely less."
"The basic body of knowledge that was later called ninjutsu was at first considered merely an unconventional way of looking at situations and accomplishing things. What went on to eventually become a highly systematic method of combat and espionage began as a shadowy counterculture, a reaction against the mainstream of Japanese political and social tradition."
"There is a saying in Chinese medicine that trying to get healthy after you’ve become sick is like digging a well when you are dying of thirst. The idea ... is to focus on your health while you are healthy."
Ambition can be Zen-like or un-Zen-like. Ambition to live mindfully and succeed ultimately in the present moment is Zen-like. Ambition to get ahead of others, gain more material possessions, and achieve status at the expense of compassion is counterproductive to Zen living.
"Around us, life bursts forth with miracles — a glass of water, a ray of sunshine, a flower, laughter ... If you live in awareness, it is easy to see miracles everywhere. Each human being is a multiplicity of miracles. Eyes that see thousands of colors, shapes, and forms; ears that hear a bee flying or a thunderclap; a brain that ponders a speck of dust as easily as the entire cosmos; a heart that beats in rhythm with the heartbeat of all beings. When we are tired and feel discouraged by life's daily struggles, we may not notice these miracles, but they are always there..."
"Nothing is more loathsome to [the Samurai] than underhand dealings and crooked undertakings."
"In meditation, imagine that in front of you are three persons — an enemy, a friend, and a neutral person. At that time, in our minds we have (1) a sense of closeness for one of them, thinking, “This is my friend”; (2) a sense of dislike even when imagining the enemy; and (3) a sense of ignoring the neutral person. Now, we have to think about the reasons why we generate these feelings — the reasons being that temporarily one of them helped us whereas the other temporarily harmed us, and the third did neither. However, when we think in terms of the long course of beginningless rebirth, none of us could decide that someone who has helped or harmed us in this life has been doing so for all lifetimes.
"When you contemplate this way, eventually you arrive at a point where a strong generation of desire or hatred appears to you to be just senseless. Gradually, such a bias weakens, and you decide that one-sided classification of persons as friends and enemies has been a mistake."
"Some teachers say that kensho is the word for those little glimmers of enlightenment, that temporary loss of self and absorption into the present moment and what you are doing, while satori and nirvana are words for a more pervasive and permanent state of enlightenment."
"Is it possible to abandon the suffering of samsara and pass beyond the suffering of samsara? If the world were created by a god, then we would be helpless. It would not be within our power to do much about our own situation, and achieve real happiness. However, some deity has not created the world, so we have the power to do something about our situation. That is because the situation we are in is the fruition of our own actions; our actions are a cause that has created this particular effect. Therefore, it is within our power to abandon the causes of suffering.
"For instance, we hear about the great suffering that beings have to undergo in the lower realms and we feel frightened by that and do not want to have to experience that kind of suffering. So, is it within our power to prevent the experience of this kind of suffering? Yes, it is because ill deeds and non-virtuous activities are the causes of being born in a lower realm. And it is within our power not to engage in such ill deeds. In that way, it is within our power to do what we want to do. If we want to achieve nirvana or the state of having crossed beyond all suffering of cyclic existence, we can simply engage in the causes that lead to nirvana."
"The concept of Yin (Um in Korean) and Yang is no doubt the theory most integral to understanding not only Ki energy but the Asian mindset toward life and the universe as a whole."
