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As I study both the exoteric and the esoteric schools of Buddhism, they maintain that human beings are endowed with Dharma-nature by birth. If this is the case, why did the Buddhas of all ages - undoubtedly in possession of enlightenment - find it necessary to seek enlightenment and engage in spiritual practice?

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
Humans
Study
Possession
Endowed
Practice
Buddhism
Undoubtedly
Age
Seek
Dharma
Spiritual
Case
Engage
Nature
Beings
Ages
School
Necessary
Maintain
Find
Birth
Schools
Human
Cases
Enlightenment
Esoteric

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The coming and going of birth and death is a painting. Unsurpassed enlightenment is a painting. The entire phenomenal universe and the empty sky are nothing but a painting.
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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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Working with plants, trees, fences and walls, if they practice sincerely they will attain enlightenment.
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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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When we discover that the truth is already in us, we are all at once our original selves.
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If you want to do a certain thing, you first have to be a certain person. Once you become that certain person, you will not care anymore about doing that certain thing.
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When you paint Spring, do not paint willows, plums, peaches, or apricots - just paint Spring.
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Because mountains are high and broad, the way of riding the clouds is always reached in the mountains the inconceivable power of soaring in the wind comes freely from the mountains
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Enlightenment is intimacy with all things.
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Know that the true dharma emerges of itself [during the practice of zazen], clearing away hindrances and distractions.
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When a buddha is painted, not only a clay altar or lump of earth is used, but the thirty-two marks, a blade of grass, and the cultivation of wisdom for incalculable eons are used. As a Buddha has been painted on a single scroll in this way, all buddhas are painted buddhas, and all painted buddhas are actual buddhas.
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Does a dragon still sing from within a withered tree?
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Sitting is the gateway of truth to total liberation.
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Although its light is wide and great, the Moon is reflected in a puddle one inch wide. The whole Moon and the entire sky is reflected in one dew drop on the grass.
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I haven't got any Buddhism. I live by letting things happen.
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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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I asked, What are words? The tenzo said, One, two, three, four, five. I asked again, What is practice? Nothing in the entire universe is hidden.
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If we seek the Buddha outside the mind, the Buddha changes into a devil.
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The true person is Not anyone in particular But like the deep blue color Of the limitless sky, It is everyone, Everywhere in the world.
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Do not view mountains from the scale of human thought.
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