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