If you learn to enjoy waiting, you don't have to wait to enjoy.
The circle is a reminder that each moment is not just the present, but is inclusive of our gratitude to the past and our responsibility to the future.
To be thoroughly lazy is a tough job, but somebody has to do it. Industrious people build industry. Lazy people build civilization.
We usually evaluate creative process in terms of how much feeling or thinking was behind the work or how well the work was done. Isn't there any other way of appreciating the process? What if the standard of excellence was how fully present the artist was during the process?
Each moment is a miracle encompassing everything: the joy and sorrow, the failure and success, the disappointment and happiness, the celebration and grief.
The enso contains the perfect and imperfect; that is why it is always complete.
As soon as you accept the accidental effects, they are no longer accidents. They are necessity the part of yourself that you could not expect or design beforehand. Thus the realm of your creativity grows wider.
A painting works only on the edge of not working. Then what is ungraspable comes near.
If you are under control, you lose the danger of glimpsing an unknown realm.
What pleases our mind is not dangerous enough.
I think Dogen can be a very good introduction for people who want to meditate in whatever way, whether it's yoga, qigong, or Tibetan. It can help widen and deepen anyone's meditation experience.
In Dogen's writing, the practical instruction, philosophy and poetry are together in one voice. People hear about his poetry, go to his work, and expect to find poetry, or they hear about his philosophy and expect to find philosophy. They look just for practical instruction and find poetry and philosophy. They can't make out the complexity of his writing, become frustrated and let him go.
