Dogen Quotes About Enlightenment

Quotes about: Enlightenment

• Do not think you will necessarily be aware of your own enlightenment.

  Dogen

  War, Thinking, Enlightenment

• Enlightenment is intimacy with all things.

  Dogen

  Buddhist, Compassion, Enlightenment

• Meditation is not a way to enlightenment, Nor is it a method of achieving anything at all. It is peace itself. It is the actualization of wisdom, The ultimate truth of the oneness of all things.

  Dogen

  Oneness, Meditation, Enlightenment

• Practice and enlightenment are not two.

  Dogen

  Practice, Two, Enlightenment

• The zazen I speak of is not learning meditation. It is simply the Dharma gate of repose and bliss, the practice-realization of totally culminated enlightenment. It is the manifestation of ultimate reality. Traps and snares can never reach it. Once its heart is grasped, you are like the dragon when he gains the water, like the tiger when she enters the mountain. For you must know that just there (in zazen) the right Dharma is manifesting itself and that, from the first, dullness and distraction are struck aside.

  Dogen

  Heart, Reality, Dragons

• Studying the Buddha way is studying oneself. Studying oneself is forgetting oneself. Forgetting oneself is being enlightened by all things. Being enlightened by all things is to shed the body-mind of oneself, and those of others. No trace of enlightenment remains, and this traceless enlightenment continues endlessly.

  Dogen

  Self, Mind, Enlightenment

• There is no beginning to practice nor end to enlightenment; There is no beginning to enlightenment nor end to practice.

  Dogen

  Practice, Enlightenment, Ends

• To start from the self and try to understand all things is delusion. To let the self be awakened by all things is enlightenment.

  Dogen

  Spiritual, Self, Enlightenment

• The coming and going of birth and death is a painting. Unsurpassed enlightenment is a painting. The entire phenomenal universe and the empty sky are nothing but a painting.

  Dogen

  Sky, Enlightenment, Painting

• 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.

  Dogen

  Wall, Heart, Practice

• Whenever learners or those beyond learning awaken the mind, for the first time they plant one buddha-nature. Working with the four elements and five clusters, if they practice sincerely they attain enlightenment. Working with plants, trees, fences and walls, if they practice sincerely they will attain enlightenment. This is because the four elements and five clusters and plants, trees, fences and walls are fellow students; because they are of the same essence, because they are the same mind and the same life, because they are the same body and the same mechanism.

  Dogen

  Life, Wall, Essence

• 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.

  Dogen

  Kindness, Heart, Sadness

• Working with plants, trees, fences and walls, if they practice sincerely they will attain enlightenment.

  Dogen

  Wall, Practice, Tree

• As I study both the exoteric and the esoteric schools of Buddhism, they maintain that human beings are endowed with Dharma-nature by birth. If this is the case, why did the Buddhas of all ages - undoubtedly in possession of enlightenment - find it necessary to seek enlightenment and engage in spiritual practice?

  Dogen

  Spiritual, School, Buddhism

  "Eihei Dogen: Mystical Realist". Book by Hee-jin Kim, 2004.

• To study the Way is to study the Self. To study the Self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things of the universe. To be enlightened by all things of the universe is to cast off the body and mind of the self as well as those of others. Even the traces of enlightenment are wiped out, and life with traceless enlightenment goes on forever and ever

  Dogen

  Self, Forever, Mind

• The one and only thing required is to free oneself from the bondage of mind and body alike, putting the Buddha's own seal upon yourself. If you do this as you sit in ecstatic meditation, the whole universe itself scattered through the infinity of space turns into enlightenment. This is what I mean by the Buddha's seal.

  Dogen

  Mean, Space, Meditation

• Since it is the practice of enlightenment, that practice has no beginning and since it is enlightenment within the practice, that realization has no end.

  Dogen

  Practice, Enlightenment, Realization

• A fish swims in the ocean, and no matter how far it swims there is no end to the water. A bird flies in the sky, and no matter how far it flies there is no end to the air. However the fish and the bird have never left their elements. Thus each of them totally covers its full range, and each of them totally experiences its realm... Know that water is life and air is life. The bird is life and the fish is life. Life must be the bird and life must be the fish... practice, enlightenment and people are like this.

  Dogen

  Ocean, Practice, Sky

• That the self advances and confirms the ten thousand things is called delusion; that the ten thousand things advance and confirm the self is called enlightenment.

  Dogen

  Self, Enlightenment, Delusion

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