Deepest Practice, Deepest Wisdom Quotes

“Since uji is moment-by-moment time of all-inclusive jiko—self and all worlds—it’s enough just to return to the fundamental reality of our life. In doing so, jiko—whole self inclusive of all worlds—returns concretely, moment-by-moment to all-inclusive jiko. This concrete returning is the meaning of “thoroughly penetrating.”
― Tom Wright, Deepest Practice, Deepest Wisdom: Three Fascicles from Shobogenzo with Commentary

“I’m going to repeat myself again: jiko—all-inclusive self—is wholly one. That is one/one, two/two, all/all. Jiko is born as wholly one. This wholly one is not simply one human being among all humanity, nor merely one member among all the members of a society—some sort of cog in a wheel. Everything that is seen or heard or felt—everything—forms the content of jiko that is all/all. At the same time, this is also all times/all times. It is the life of all/all, all times / all times that we are actually living out.”
― Tom Wright, Deepest Practice, Deepest Wisdom: Three Fascicles from Shobogenzo with Commentary

“Because there is only time present, uji is all-inclusive time. All living things, all occurring phenomena are time. Each instant, each moment of time embodies all existences, all worlds. Uji is inclusive of all time. All the grasses and everything that occurs are time. All existences, all phenomena are contained in the ever-occurring presence of time. Contemplate deeply as to whether or not there is anything at all outside of the present.”
― Daitsu Tom Wright, Deepest Practice, Deepest Wisdom: Three Fascicles from Shobogenzo with Commentary

“Jiko, in the Buddhist sense, is the birth of jiko [self] simultaneously with the birth of the world; the living out of jiko is the living out of that world, and the demise of jiko is the demise of jiko’s world. Jiko, living as animated presence, is the simultaneous presence of world—phenomena, circumstances, situations—everything! So jiko is inclusive of all things, all circumstances. “I” and “all-inclusive world” are not entities separate from ever-changing. There is just one life of jiko—whole self.”
― Daitsu Tom Wright, Deepest Practice, Deepest Wisdom: Three Fascicles from Shobogenzo with Commentary

“But as long as we think we were born, we will die. Grasped by thoughts, people usually think only of living and put a lid on dying in order not to see it; they don’t understand true life. When we uncover the lid and see that life includes death, we can see true life clearly. As the reality of life, we are born and die within the total, interpenetrating self that has no birth and death. This is mahā—great, boundless vastness.”
― Tom Wright, Deepest Practice, Deepest Wisdom: Three Fascicles from Shobogenzo with Commentary

“Never seek outside myself Or I will be far from me. Now I go only by myself. Everywhere I meet my reflection— Now, he is surely me, But I am not him. Seeing in this way I will act in accord with whatever comes.”
― Tom Wright, Deepest Practice, Deepest Wisdom: Three Fascicles from Shobogenzo with Commentary