“If you fall into poverty, live that way without grumbling - then your poverty will not burden you. Likewise, if you are rich, live with your riches. All this is the functioning of Buddha-nature. In short, Buddha-nature has the quality of infinite adaptability.”
― Philip Kapleau, quote from The Three Pillars of Zen
“You must realize that no matter how intently you count your breaths you will still perceive what is in your line of vision, since your eyes are open, and you will hear the normal sounds about you, as your ears are not plugged. And since your brain likewise is not asleep, various thought forms will dart about your mind. Now, they will not hamper or diminish the effectiveness of zazen unless, evaluating them as "good", you cling to them or, deciding they are "bad", you try to check or eliminate them.”
― Philip Kapleau, quote from The Three Pillars of Zen
“One day a man of the people said to Zen Master Ikkyu: “Master, will you please write for me some maxims of the highest wisdom?” Ikkyu immediately took his brush and wrote the word “Attention.” “Is that all?” asked the man. “Will you not add something more?” Ikkyu then wrote twice running: “Attention. Attention.” “Well,” remarked the man rather irritably, “I really don’t see much depth or subtlety in what you have just written.” Then Ikkyu wrote the same word three times running: “Attention. Attention. Attention.” Half angered, the man demanded: “What does that word ‘Attention’ mean anyway?” And Ikkyu answered gently: “Attention means attention.”11”
― Philip Kapleau, quote from The Three Pillars of Zen
“our mastery of worldly phenomena will simply change the particular ways we suffer and not our understanding of the nature of suffering.”
― Philip Kapleau, quote from The Three Pillars of Zen
“skipped my meditation because of a headache and Fuji looked somber and lifeless … Today after a couple of hours of good meditation in a chair it’s grand and soaring again. A remarkable discovery: I have the power of life and death over Fuji!…”
― Philip Kapleau, quote from The Three Pillars of Zen
“You must cease concerning yourself with the dialects of Buddhism and instead learn how to look into your own mind in seclusion.”
― Philip Kapleau, quote from The Three Pillars of Zen
“The patriarchal line is, then, a reminder of how deep cultural biases can run, in this case undercutting the core Buddhist teaching that all beings without exception are equally endowed with the true nature of enlightenment.”
― Philip Kapleau, quote from The Three Pillars of Zen
Philip Kapleau
Born place: in New Haven, The United States
Born date August 12, 1912
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“The baby was no longer on the verge of death; no longer would the sweet, easy tears of mourning melt it away as if it were a simple jelly. The baby continued to live, and it was oppressing Bird, even beginning to attack him. Swaddled in skin as red as shrimp which gleamed with the luster of scar tissue, the baby was beginning ferociously to live, dragging its anchor of a heavy lump. A vegetable existence? Maybe so; a deadly cactus.”
― Kenzaburō Ōe, quote from A Personal Matter
“استشعر كيواكي راحة مستمدة من هدوء البال، الذي يعقب الفقدان. وفي قرارة فؤاده، كان على الدوام يفضل الأمر الواقع المترتب على الخسارة على الخوف من هذه الخسارة.”
― Yukio Mishima, quote from Spring Snow
“I love the sound of a brand-new bottle of coke when you pry the lid off and it starts to fizz. Whenever I hear that sound, I think of roses, and of sitting together with someone you care about and of Romeo and Juliet waking up somewhere and saying to each other, weren't we jerks? And then having all that be over. That's what I think of when I hear the sound of a brand-new bottle of Coke being opened”
― Gary D. Schmidt, quote from The Wednesday Wars
“What I remember most is that the laws of physics no longer seemed to apply. Gravity was backwards and the world was, I'm quite certain, moving in slow motion. His pull wasn't a pull; I was just falling upward, and he caught me. There really was no beginning or end to the kiss; it wasn't even really there- and because of that, it was tremendous. Our lips were just four sweet, shy people meeting, saying, "Hello, it's nice to meet you." But what passed between them was massive. Nuclear. And in an instant, every cobweb inside me was obliterated. My inner struggles, my uncertainty, my fear of tiger attack... gone. Just the feeling of being a newborn, a pure soul just waiting to be imprinted upon.”
― James Patterson, quote from Confessions of a Murder Suspect
“If we share our shame story with the wrong person, they can easily become one more piece of flying debris in an already dangerous storm.”
― Brené Brown, quote from The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are
Stinger
The Last Templar
Frostbite
The Cellar
Under a Painted Sky
Big Magic: Creative...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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