Discriminate between the transient and the eternal. Learn to move from complete control to complete abandon.
The world that you see is like a motion picture. We are engrossed in a film and we have forgotten that we're sitting in a movie theatre.
Zen students see themselves as athletes. Their competitive sport is enlightenment; only with enlightenment do we compete.
There is competition in Zen. Let's not be ridiculous. There is competition in everything in life; being a winner in Zen means, competing and winning in the world of enlightenment.
Thousands and thousands of incarnations and nothing to show for it. You must choose whether to follow the path of love or the path of attachment.
When your Japanese lifetime is coming out, drink all the sake you want. Have a little bash.
It is in Zen practice that you gain power, balance and wisdom. The battles that you fight are within your own mind. That is where the real victories and defeats are.
Eternity is everywhere, it stretches endlessly in all directions, never beginning and never ending. Merge with it. Embrace it. Be free and disciplined.
There is no ultimate objective reality within the ten thousand states of mind. Most people don't like to hear this. But there are ten thousand realities, and each is definitely unifying.
To look for truth in all the wrong and all the right places is the only excuse for living.
The sensual experiences in life are not to be avoided. This is the philosophy of Tantric Buddhism - nor are they particularly to be sought after.
Celibacy doesn't make you enlightened, otherwise every nun or priest in Buddhism or Christianity would be enlightened. People who don't date and can't get any action would be enlightened.
The sensual world cannot be avoided. We're in it at every moment. We are part of it.
Now, tantra is a little bit different than other forms of Buddhism because in tantra what we do is we use the sensorial worlds as access points or pathways to ineffability.
Some people, of course, say they're practicing tantra. There are a lot of books on tantric sexual practice in local bookstores. These are usually pretty silly books.
The most important thing is sensitivity. Many people have sex and don't feel anything, and that seems kind of sad to me. The answer is not necessarily the avoidance of sex, but learning to be sensitive and to love and to care.
Sex is like any other transaction, except that it is not like any other transaction.
In Tantric Buddhism our feeling is that there is no problem with the sensual world unless you have a tremendous attraction or aversion to it.
The anti-pleasure movement in self-discovery is very strong. I have big news for them, if they ever get to enlightenment, which is unlikely the way they're approaching it, they're going to find that enlightenment is very pleasurable.
The issue is not what you're doing with your body; it's what you're doing with your mind.
Fasting is as sensual as eating. Being celibate is as sensual as having sex. They're just different choices, different videos that you've selected to view tonight.
You're thinking that you shouldn't have sex because you're celibate. So you just keep thinking about sex instead of enlightenment.
The tantric path involves taking the mind and directing it beyond the senses.
Obviously there is a lot more ecstasy in the spirit than in the flesh but the flesh has its moments!
What is Tantric Zen? Well, I don't think I can give you a straight answer, since I don't happen to be a very straight Zen master.
