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You should stop searching for phrases and chasing after words. Take the backward step and turn the light inward. Your body-mind of itself will drop off and your original face will appear. If you want to attain just this, immediately practice just this.

Dogen

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Dogen
Age: 53 †
Born: 1200
Born: January 19
Died: 1253
Died: September 29
Bhikkhu
Leader
Philosopher
Teacher
Whitefield
Greater Manchester
Dōgen Zenji
Dōgen Kigen
Eihei Dōgen
Dogen
Dougen
Take
Stop
Drop
Mind
Practice
Immediately
Face
Appear
Backward
Turns
Originals
Attain
Faces
Original
Chasing
Words
Step
Searching
Light
Steps
Inward
Body
Turn
Phrases

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One must be deeply aware of the impermanence of the world.
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When both body and mind are at peace, all things appear as they are: perfect, complete, lacking nothing.
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Does a dragon still sing from within a withered tree?
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Do not miss the opportunity of offering even a single drop into the ocean of merit or a grain atop the mountain of the roots of beneficial activity.
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The recognition of the coming and going of things is a first step in training and practice.
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There are thousands upon thousands of students who have practiced meditation and obtained its fruits. Do not doubt its possibilities because of the simplicity of the method. If you can not find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?
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In doing zazen it is desirable to have a quiet room. You should be temperate in eating and drinking, forsaking all delusive relationships. Setting everything aside, think of neither good nor evil, right nor wrong. Thus having stopped the various functions of your mind, five up even the idea of becoming a Buddha.
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Students, when you want to say something, think about it three times before you say it. Speak only if your words will benefit yourselves and others. Do not speak if it brings no benefit.
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Because monks come from the midst of purity, they consider as good and pure what does not arouse desire among other people.
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Working with plants, trees, fences and walls, if they practice sincerely they will attain enlightenment.
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To study the Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self.
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Do not view mountains from the scale of human thought.
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When you paint Spring, do not paint willows, plums, peaches, or apricots, but just paint Spring. To paint willows, plums, peaches, or apricots is to paint willows, plums, peaches, or apricots - it is not yet painting Spring.
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In a snowfall that covers the winter grass a white heron uses his own whiteness to disappear.
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All that's visible springs from causes intimate to you. While walking, sitting, lying down, the body itself is complete truth. If someone asks the inner meaning of this: Inside the treasury of dharma eye a single grain of dust.
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Truth is not far away. It is nearer than near. There is no need to attain it, since not one of your steps leads away from it.
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There are myriads of forms and hundreds of grasses throughout the entire earth, yet each grass and each form itself is the entire earth.
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Those who see worldly life as an obstacle to Dharma see no Dharma in everyday actions. They have not yet discovered that there are no everyday actions outside of Dharma.
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