Proverbs

The mountain has been at this practice longer than any teacher in the building. When the bell rings, listen for the way the mountain sits beneath it.

Time is the thing, and the thing is time. The pine is time; the bamboo is time. To say I am wasting time is to admit you are waiting for time to be elsewhere; it never is.

Wherever you are, it is the place you need to be.

An old man laughs at his own paintings, and the paintings do not mind. So practice — laughed at by the years, the practice does not lose its smile.

The householder's practice is the hardest. Children cry, debts arrive, work waits. Nobody rings a bell to begin or end. Whoever practices well in this is already an old master.

What was your original face before your parents were born?

Some teacher said: three pounds of flax. Some teacher said: a dry shit-stick. I say: a stone bridge. Cross all three, and you arrive at the same village.

A new monk arrived; I told him to have a cup of tea. An old monk arrived; I told him to have a cup of tea. The temple steward asked: why the same answer? I told him to have a cup of tea.

I walked a long way for this dharma; I do not propose to talk it back into a cage. Whoever wants to know what I know should walk too.

If your sitting feels shallow today, do not look for deeper sitting. Look for being here. The deepening will follow you in without an invitation.

The lotus grows in the muddy water. Without the mud, there is no lotus.

I attained arahantship the night before the council, after years of being told I was not yet ready. Whoever has been told he is not ready: that telling itself is the door.