Process, not Outcome

You must not be attached to the outcome, but only give yourself - one hundred percent - to the process.

-Richard Chun, Taekwondo Spirit and Practice: Beyond Self-Defense

Counting Colors

Creating systems and categories is not unlike counting the colors of a rainbow -- both merely detract from our experience of reality, while at the same time limiting our appreciation of the world's richness. And to declare something right or wrong is similarly nearsighted.

-Thomas Hoover, The Zen Experience

Rational Analysis

...as Americans, our downfall is twofold: our propensity to be too analytical and our rationalism. Too many years of psychoanalysis and Freudian thought has caused us to categorize everything in terms of fact and myth, not realizing, as the Chinese did, that they are one and the same. If we are to understand and practice the teachings of Tao, these two failings must be remedied.

-Stuart Alve Olson, The Jade Emperor's Mind Seal Classic: The Taoist Guide to Health, Longevity, and Immortality

Common Bonds

If we train our mind to look deeper and to recognize that each person is just like us in wanting happiness and not wanting pain, then we will feel a common bond with everyone and will be able to wish everyone well equally. Needless to say, such an attitude must be cultivated over time. ... We are creatures of habit and need to put effort into pulling ourselves out of habitual judgments, emotional responses, and behaviors towards others. Each moment of our life is a new one with the opportunity to experiment and do things differently.

-Thubten Chodron, Buddhism for Beginners

Prolonged Warfare

There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare.

-Sun Tzu, The Art of War (Lionel Giles Translation)

The Way of the Sage

The Taoists of the Tao-te ching were not social dropouts. For them, the sage was an individual who understood the natural way of things (the Tao) and lived in harmony with it; therefore, changes in society must come from changes within individuals, and changes in individuals could come only from following the principles of the Tao.

-Eva Wong, Taoism: An Essential Guide

Gifts of Fate

When you discover your genuine gift, you are simultaneously seized by your fate.

-John Maki Evans, Kurikara: The Sword and the Serpent

Holding Questions

I believe that spiritual practice is more about holding questions than finding answers. Seeking one correct answer often comes from a wish to make life-which is basically fluid-into something certain and fixed. This often leads to rigidity, closed-mindedness, and intolerance. On the other hand, holding a question-exploring its many facets over time-puts us in touch with the mystery of life. Holding questions accustoms us to the ungraspable nature of life and enables us to understand things from a range of perspectives.

-Thubten Chodron, Buddhism for Beginners

Rewards and Punishments

The misconception that happiness and pain are rewards and punishments may come from incorrect translations of Buddhist scriptures into English. I have seen some translations that use terminology from other religions. This is very misleading because terms such as heaven, hell, sin, punishment, and judgment do not correspond to Buddhist concepts.

-Thubten Chodron, Buddhism for Beginners

Getting It by Feeling It

...the general tendency of the Western mind is to feel that we do not really understand what we cannot represent, what we cannot communicate, by linear signs – by thinking. We are like the “wallflower” who cannot learn a dance unless someone draws him a diagram of the steps, who cannot “get it by the feel.”

-Alan W. Watts, The Way of Zen

Revelations Every Minute

This God of Buddhism does not resort to any special revelation in order to announce his existence to the world; he has no favored son to sacrifice for the sake of the sin of which the poor innocent child has no conception. His revelation is not an historical event, but it is happening every minute, and those who have eyes see it, those who have ears hear it. And to know the truth of this, it is only necessary to cleanse the heart of its egoistic impurities and defilements, which have been accumulating by virtue of our subjective ignorance.

-Soyen Shaku, Zen For Americans

The Best is Yet to Come

Was the golden age of man, then, over in the remote past? Is the doomsday coming instead? Do you bear the trumpet call? Do you feel the earth tremble? No, absolutely no, the golden age is not passed. It is yet to come.

-Kaiten Nukariya, The Religion of the Samurai

Simple Luxury

Taoists admire a pristine simple lifestyle, which might be frugal but quite enjoyable. Happiness is not the exclusive property of a luxurious lifestyle. On the contrary, in the Taoist view, happiness resides in being content with simplicity.

-You-Sheng Li, A New Interpretation of Chinese Taoist Philosophy 

Cultivating a Common Bond

"[By] recognizing that each sentient being wants to be happy and to avoid suffering as intensely as we do ... [we deflate] the judgmental, critical mind that loves to pick out faults in others.  If we train our mind to look deeper and to recognize that each person is just like us in wanting happiness and not wanting pain, then we will feel a common bond with everyone and will be able to wish everyone well equally.  ...such an attitude must be cultivated over time."

-Thubten Chodron, Buddhism for Beginners

We Are All One

"...my brothers, my sisters, my neighbours - nay, all my fellow-men and fellow-women are no other than the reincarnation of their parents and forefathers, who are also mine. The same blood invigorated the king as well as the beggar; the same nerve energized the white as well as the black men; the same consciousness vitalized the wise as well as the unwise. Impossible it is to conceive myself independent of my fellow-men and fellow-women, for they are mine and I am theirs - that is, I live and move in them, and they live and move in me."

-Kaiten Nukariya, The Religion of the Samurai: A Study of Zen Philosophy and Discipline in China and Japan

The True Human

"...a true human is not a model of righteousness, a pig or a prude, but recognizes that some failings are as necessary to genuine human nature as salt to stew.  Merely righteous people are impossible to live with because they have no humor, do not allow the true human nature to be, and are dangerously unconscious of their own shadows. ... Trust in human nature is acceptance of the good-and-bad of it, and it is hard to trust those who do not admit their own weaknesses."

-Alan Watts, Tao: The Watercourse Way

Name the Color, Blind the Eye

Creating systems and categories is not unlike counting the colors of a rainbow -- both merely detract from our experience of reality, while at the same time limiting our appreciation of the world's richness. And to declare something right or wrong is similarly nearsighted.

-Thomas Hoover, The Zen Experience

Science meets Zen

The experience associated with an enlightened perspective is virtually impossible to put into words; it can only be experienced.

Nevertheless, from time to time, someone finds a way to convey a glimpse.  Kudos to this young man, Scientist and engineer Jeff Lieberman, for doing just that.

Measuring the Immeasurable

The present system of paying for every sort of service was not in vogue among the adherents of Bushido. It believed in a service which can be rendered only without money and without price. Spiritual service, be it of priest or teacher, was not to be repaid in gold or silver, not because it was valueless but because it was invaluable ... whereas the best service done in education, namely, in soul development, is not definite, tangible, or measurable. Being immeasurable, money, the ostensible measure of value, is of inadequate use.

-Inazo Nitobe, Bushido, the Soul of Japan

A Great Tree

"Karate-do is a noble martial art, and the reader can rest assured that those ... who boast of being able to perform outlandish feats like stripping flesh or plucking out ribs, really knows nothing about karate.  They are playing around in the leaves and branches of a great tree, without the slightest concept of the trunk."

-Gichin Funakoshi, Karate-Do Nyumona