Throw Yourself into the House of Buddha – von Tangen Harada Roshi

Datum gelesen: 10.10.2025

Empfehlung: 8/10

Meine Notizen

• I then resolved to become like a chair. A chair doesn't refuse its services to anybody; it just takes care of the sitter and lets them rest their legs. After it has served its purpose, no one gets up and gives thanks or offers words of kindness to the chair. It will more likely get kicked out of the way. The chair doesn't grumble or complain or bear a grudge, but just takes whatever is given. I wrote on a big sheet of paper, "Be like a chair," and every day I took note of how close I came.
• I was adding nothing. The wind began to gust up toward me from the valley below. I became enveloped by the wind. I felt as if I were growing bigger and bigger. At that moment, I realized that I was supported by heaven and earth, by all things. Looking at the mountain, the mountain was me. Happiness gushed from the depths of my belly.
• Wake up, and you can say for yourself, "The sun is my eye, the wind my breath, all of space my heart, the mountain and ocean my body."
• We cannot ultimately be satisfied by getting what we want, and yet some people spend all their lives thinking that gratifying desires is what being human is about.
• Lay down your self-cherishing; throw yourself into the house of Buddha—then everything is done by Buddha. Release the hold of the small self and know how vast you are.
• The heart believes in tomorrow's cherry blossoms, the storm comes at night and blows them away.
• You have to resolve the problem of life and death for yourself, and no one can do it for you.
• Life is not a solid, fixed thing—there is no self in it.
• The only thing then for you to do is to seek that which cannot be taken away, that which cannot be lost. This most precious thing is right here under your feet. When you meet with it, you know that there is no dying; that which cannot be lost or destroyed is your original life.
• Throw yourself into the house of Buddha and everything is done by Buddha. Then zazen simply does zazen; there is no controlling.
• Many people still don't realize what they are carrying around and that suffering is the fabric of their lives. The Buddha used to say that this world is an ocean of suffering. But that is only if you grasp at the waves—the ocean in essence is great freedom.
• Patience, calm endurance, is doing what needs to be done without looking away.
• YOU SET OUT to do it, it will be done—if you don't, it won't be done; when something isn't done, it is because you didn't resolve to do it.
• "Right where you are standing, just some meters beneath you, there is a big treasure box—all you have to do is dig and it's yours."
• There is only one thing to do in this life—it is to meet with your true self.
• You are being encouraged constantly, reminded that this is it. The entire world, everything you see, all that surrounds you, all that you are, is the true teaching laid down for you.
• "THE WAY IS ORIGINALLY perfect and all-pervading." — Dogen Zenji, Fukanzazengi
• Everything, everyone is precious. Everyone is, just as they are, the perfect revelation of truth. You are the treasure; you are the jewel of all jewels already.
• Great Zen Master Joshu had his first deep awakening at eighteen years old, but he continued to deepen and polish his insight until he was sixty. Then as he departed on pilgrimage, he said, "If a girl of eight can teach me something, I will study at her knee." That's the spirit!