The Eight Gates of Zen Quotes

“Zen is a special transmission outside the scriptures, no reliance on words and letters, a direct pointing to the human mind, the realization of Buddhahood.”
― John Daido Loori, The Eight Gates of Zen: A Program of Zen Training

“The zazen I speak of is not learning meditation. It is simply the Dharma Gate of repose and bliss, the practice/realization of total accumulated enlightenment.”
― John Daido Loori, The Eight Gates of Zen: A Program of Zen Training

“Although the body and mind are undefiled, there is the truth of cleansing the body and there is the truth of cleansing the mind. Not only does it purify the body and mind, but it purifies even the land and the trees. Lands have never been covered with dust and dirt, yet it is the desires of Buddhas to cleanse them. Attaining the fruit of Enlightenment they still do not retreat or abandon. Such a supreme principle is difficult to comprehend. Ritual conduct is the supreme principle. The realization of the Way is ritual conduct.”
― John Daido Loori, The Eight Gates of Zen: A Program of Zen Training

“you begin to realize that The Mountains and Rivers Sutra is not a sutra about mountains and rivers, but rather that the mountains and rivers are themselves the sutra.”
― John Daido Loori, The Eight Gates of Zen: A Program of Zen Training