The Book of Mu Quotes

“The koan is not a conundrum to be solved by a nimble wit. It is not a verbal psychiatric device for shocking the disintegrated ego of a student into some kind of stability. Nor, in my opinion, is it ever a paradoxical statement except to those who view it from outside. When the koan is resolved it is realized to be a simple and clear statement made from the state of consciousness which it has helped to awaken. —from The Zen Koan, by Ruth Fuller Sasaki”
― James Ishmael Ford, The Book of Mu: Essential Writings on Zen's Most Important Koan

“Anywhere but Here.”
― James Ishmael Ford, The Book of Mu: Essential Writings on Zen's Most Important Koan

“Koans offer the possibility that you could free the mind in one jump, without passing through stages or any pretense at logical steps. In the territory that koans open up, we live down a level, before explanations occur, beneath the ground that fear is based on, before the wanting and the scrambling around for advantage, before there is a handle on the problem, before we were alienated from the world. A koan doesn’t hide or even”
― James Ishmael Ford, The Book of Mu: Essential Writings on Zen's Most Important Koan