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At his final moment, he wrote the Chinese character for yume (“dream”), put down the brush, and died.
if your mind is diverted in any way, your actions will falter, and this can mean that you will be cut down.
When facing a single tree, if you look at a single one of its red leaves, you will not see all the others. When the eye is not set on any one leaf, and you face the tree with nothing at all in mind, any number of leaves are visible to the eye without limit. But if a single leaf holds the eye, it will be as if the remaining leaves were not there.
To think, “I will not think” This, too, is something in one’s thoughts. Simply do not think About not thinking at all.
The word seriousness is elaborated on by the saying, “One aim with no distractions.”
Knowing what is evil but not refraining from it is a sickness of one’s own desires.
It is said that, in all things, if you would know a man’s good and evil points, you should know the retainers and underlings he loves and employs, and the friends with whom he mixes intimately.
It is said that a good man is regarded as a jewel by the province.
first make your own conduct correct
If one’s right-mindedness is correct when he is associating with others, he will not be insulted by them.
This is like the sun or moon being reflected in puddles of water. The Buddha explained that “the manifestation of form in response to the material world is like the moon in the midst of the water.”
A person may be as eloquent as a rushing stream, but if his mind has not been enlightened and if he has not seen into his own true nature, he will not be someone to be relied upon.
We worship and revere the gods regardless of who they are.
The world being in decline, retainers now employ themselves under this lord and that, in the end fitting the image of vagabond attendants while proclaiming their own merits. Such are the times in which we live.
Heaven and earth are the wayfarer’s inn of the Ten Thousand Things. Fleeting time is the traveler of a hundred generations. This floating life is like a dream.8 How long will our happiness last? The ancients lit lamps and amused themselves at night. Truly there was a reason for this.
Like the joints in bamboo, amusement, for the most part, should have limits.
It would not be surprising if the nobility and the samurai alike, when they realized that this floating world is but a dream, lit the lamps and amused themselves throughout the night.
the Ten Essential Qualities.14 They are Form, Nature, Embodiment, Power, Function, Latent Cause, External Cause, Latent Effect, Manifest Effect, and Total Inseparability of one from the others. The Ten Worlds are those of Hell, Hunger, Animality, Anger, Humankind, Heaven, Learning, Realization, Bodhisattvahood, and Buddhahood.
If one goes on without slackening his efforts, learning one Chinese character today and another tomorrow, he should be able to achieve anything.
The meaning of Function should be understood through the saying, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
In the same way, if one would become a Buddha, if he does not first act in accordance with the Latent Cause, he will not reach the state of Buddhahood. Make discipline the Latent Cause, and later you will obtain the effect.
Depending on the planting of the Latent Cause in spring, one obtains the fruit in the fall.
If one would become a Buddha, he cannot do without the discipline of the Latent Cause.
the Sixth Patriarch, the Zen Master Ta Chien.
One must drink in the breath of all the Buddhas while swallowing one’s own voice.
If a man has tempered himself and arrived at this principle, he will control everything under heaven with a single sword.
