Zen Training Quotes

“While you are conscious of being a Buddha, you are not truly a Buddha, because you are ensnared by the idea. You are not empty.”
― Katsuki Sekida, Zen Training: Methods and Philosophy

“We are responsible for our future, and for the future of humanity. There can be no evasion, no excuse for inattention to the duty of this moment.”
― Kazuki Sekida, Zen Training: Methods and Philosophy

“He treads the sharp edge of a sword. He runs over the steep ridge of an iceberg.” Every moment is the sharp edge of a sword. A slight misstep proves fatal. Every moment you are creating yourself; your thought is of your own making and it affects all your succeeding thoughts; it decides the trend of your mind toward integrity or weakness.”
― Kazuki Sekida, Zen Training: Methods and Philosophy

“One may practice zazen for twenty, thirty, even fifty years, and go through failures and frustrations, but every defeat and time of despair is in reality a gain rather than a loss. Any experience is to be regarded as a part of one’s assets.”
― Katsuki Sekida, Zen Training: Methods and Philosophy

“To cast off the delusive way of ordinary consciousness while sitting on a cushion in a quiet room is only the beginning. The student must learn to live in the ordinary world, while yet retaining the quality of his experience of absolute samadhi.”
― Katsuki Sekida, Zen Training: Methods and Philosophy

“The man who said for the first time, “Brothers are the beginning of strangers!” Must have begun to say it With a breaking heart.”
― Kazuki Sekida, Zen Training: Methods and Philosophy

“All Americans must know that the momentary collision is not merely the percussion of two bodies: it is a combat between spiritual powers.”
― Kazuki Sekida, Zen Training: Methods and Philosophy

“The art of breathing in zazen is to maintain this tension. Further, when the respiratory muscles are contracted, the muscles of the entire body are put under tension, so that the tanden is the leader of the muscles of the whole body. In crucial moments, breathing involuntarily comes to a stop. The circus performer knows this, the athlete knows it, the potter throwing a bowl on the wheel knows it, and so does the cartographer, who unconsciously holds his breath when he wants to draw a fine and accurate line.”
― Kazuki Sekida, Zen Training: Methods and Philosophy

“Zen is above all a matter of personal experience. The student is asked to accept nothing the truth of which he cannot demonstrate for himself, with his own mind and body.”
― Katsuki Sekida, Zen Training: Methods and Philosophy

“Zen training is a means of enabling us to live our ordinary lives supremely well.”
― Katsuki Sekida, Zen Training: Methods and Philosophy