Fixation spawns thoughts
That provoke compulsive acts—
Emptiness stops fixations."

-- Nagarjuna
from "Nagarjuna's Verses from the Center,"
by Stephen Batchelor, Tricycle, Spring 2000

---

IT IS MOST URGENT THAT YOU SEEK
real, true perception
so you can be free in the world
and not confused by ordinary teachers.
It is best to have no obsessions.
Just don't be contrived.
Simply be normal.
You impulsively seek elsewhere,
looking to others for
your own hands and feet.
This is already mistaken.

-- Linji (d. 867)
from April 26, 2001 entry,
www.dailyzen.com

---

RELIGION IS NOT MERELY A BELIEF
in an ultimate reality or in an ultimate ideal.
These beliefs are worse than false; they are platitudes,
truisms that nobody will dispute. Religion is a
momentous possibility, the possibility namely
that what is highest in spirit is also deepest
in nature—that there is something at the heart
of nature, something akin to us, a conserver and
increaser of values... that the things that matter
most are not at the mercy of the things
that matter least."

-- a handout from the B'Nai Sholom Congregation
at an Inter-Faith Dialogue Weekend,
Huntington, W.Va., January 2001

---

IF THROUGH PRACTICE OF INSIGHT
you develop a sense of ease, then time has no relevance.
If you're miserable, time does matter.
It's so unbearable, so enormous
you want to get out if it
as soon as possible.

-- The Dalai Lama
quoted in March 24, 2001 entry of
"Words of Wisdom: Selected Quotes"

---

RELIGIOUS PEOPLE HAVE SO OFTEN
pretended to have all the answers.
They have seen their mission as being to persuade,
to enforce, to level differences and perhaps
even to impose uniformity. There is really
something of the Grand Inquisitor in most
religious people. But when religion begins to bully
or insinuate, it has become unspiritual
because the first gift of the Spirit,
creatively moving in man's nature,
is freedom and frankness...

-- John Main
from "Word Into Silence" (1980)

---

IF YOU THINK THAT YOU HAVE CUT OFF
illusory mind, instead of simply clarifying
how illusory mind melts, illusory mind
will come up again, as though you had
cut the stem of a blade of grass...
and left the root alive.

-- Menzen Zuiho (1682-1769)
courtesy of the Jan. 25, 2001 entry for Dayly Zen,
www.dailyzen.com

---

PRACTICE IS ALLOWING
everything in your life
to wake you up.

-- Mirabai Bush,
director, Center for Contemplative Mind in Society,
Northhampton, MA

---

A ZENDO IS NOT A PEACEFUL HAVEN
but a furnace room for the combustion
of our delusions.

-- Eido Roshi

---

THE WISE MAN DOES AT ONCE
what the fool does
finally.

-- Graician

---

THE MIND THAT DOES NOT UNDERSTAND
is the Buddha.
There is no other.

-- Ma-Tsu

---

THERE ARE DIFFERENT WAYS OF BEING AFRAID.
Pointlessly afraid, and justifiably afraid.
Being afraid of thoughts and emotions belongs under
'pointlessly afraid.' But there is also a necessary way
to being afraid. And that is the more intelligent
kind, which is that you face facts and you understand
that if such and such negative action makes
such and such happen, then it's not going to go well,
and you're afraid of that, so you do your best.
That's an intelligent kind of fear. But being pointlessly
afraid of oneself, afraid of one's emotions—that comes
from not knowing how to be free.

-- Tsoknyi Rinpoche
from Tricycle, Winter 1999

---

PERHAPS NO GOOD TEACHER
is concerned with the personality
of his disciple. The master's intention
is to get the self-centered sluggard
to finally give up showing off his masks.

-- Janwillem Van De Wetering
from "AFTER ZEN: Experiences of a Zen Student
Put Out on His Ear" (St. Martins Press, 1999)

---

I WILL TAKE MY EXISTENTIAL ANGST
straight up,
no chaser.

-- Douglas Imbrogno
from Belfast Notebook, 2000

---

IT DOESN'T INTEREST ME
where or what or with whom you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you from
the inside when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself,
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.

-- Oriah Mountain Dreamer,
Indian Elder, excerpt from "The Invitation"

---

HOW CAN A TROUBLED MIND
Understand the way?

Your worst enemy cannot harm you
As much as your own thoughts, unguarded.

But once mastered,
No one can help you as much,
Not even your father or your mother.

The Buddha,
from "The Dhammapada"

---

PREVIOUSLY:

QUOTATIONS, Winter/01: Joanna Macy, Alfred North Whitehead, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Black Elk, Thoreau and more.

QUOTATIONS, Fall/00: Sokei-An, Lama Surya Das, Robert Aitken Roshi, Helen Tworkov, Thich Nhat Hanh, Pema Chodron and more.

QUOTATIONS, 3/00: Ajaan Munbhuridatha Mahathera, Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, Sister Ayya Khema, Seamus Heaney and more

QUOTATIONS, 9/99: Sir Edwin Arnold, Herakleitos, Robert Aitken Roshi, E.B. White, Pablo Neruda and more.

QUOTATIONS, 5/99: Rumi, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Yogi Berra, Thinley Norbu Rinpoche and more.

QUOTATIONS, 2/99:
Jack Kornfield, Ajahn Jumnien, Kabir, Toni Packer and more.

QUOTATIONS, 11/98:
The Dalai Lama, Eudora Welty, Jim Harrison, James Baldwin and more.

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