You must not take out your sword because if you try to kill someone, you must die for it yourself. What you must do instead is kill yourself, kill your own mind.
Expansion of consciousness
“ZEN IS NOT A PARTICULAR STATE BUT THE NORMAL STATE: SILENT, PEACEFUL, UNAGITATED.”
Zazen meditation is difficult. However, practising it on a daily basis is very effective for the expansion of consciousness and the development of intuition. Zazen not only releases great energies, but it is also and especially the attitude of revival. By practicing zazen, our brain can regain its normal and original state and returns to the cosmic order.
Sitting in zazen, you let the images, the thoughts and all the mental structures that emerge from the unconscious pass by like clouds in the sky - without resisting them, without clinging to them. Like shadows in front of a mirror, everything that emanates from the subconscious passes by, returns back and finally disintegrates. Thus one reaches the deep unconscious, which is without thought, beyond all thinking, true purity.
Zen education is strong and is aimed at people who are already strong. Zen is very simple and at the same time quite difficult to understand. It is a matter of effort and repetition - like life. If you sit - unceremoniously, without purpose and profit - your posture, breathing and mental attitude in harmony, then you understand the true Zen. Every day you practise, your mind changes.
- Taisen Deshimaru
Harmonizing opposites by going back to their source is the distinctive quality of the Zen attitude, the Middle Way: embracing contradictions, making a synthesis of them, achieving balance.
Taisen DeshimaruIf you have a glass full of liquid you can discourse forever on its qualities, discuss whether it is cold, warm, whether it is really and truly composed of H-2-O, or even mineral water, or saki. Meditation is Drinking it!
Taisen DeshimaruYou must concentrate upon and consecrate yourself wholly to each day, as though a fire were raging in your hair.
Taisen DeshimaruTrain the body and develop stamina and endurance. But the spirit of competition and power that presides over them is not good, it reflects a distorted vision of life. The root of the martial arts is not there.
Taisen DeshimaruKeep your hands open, and all the sands of the desert can pass through them. Close them, and all you can feel is a bit of grit.
Taisen DeshimaruHuman wisdom alone is not enough, it is not complete. Only universal truth can provide the highest wisdom. Take away the word Zen and put Truth or Order of the Universe in its place.
Taisen DeshimaruZazen is like water in a glass. Leave the water to sit quietly and soon the dirt will sink down, down, and the water will become pure.
Taisen DeshimaruIn a sutra it is written that if you want to have a second bowl of soup and at this moment you decide not to have it, then this will become a great fuse for all humanity. If you wish to change your tiny room for a big apartment and you do not, then this will become a great fuse for all humanity…
Taisen DeshimaruZen is not a particular state but the normal state: silent, peaceful, unagitated.
Taisen DeshimaruYou cannot separate any part from the whole: interdependence rules the cosmic order.
Taisen DeshimaruWhat is called zazen is sitting on a zafu [pillow] in a quiet room, absolutely still, in the exact and proper position and without uttering a word, the mind empty of any thought, good or wicked. It is continuing to sit peacefully, facing a wall, and nothing more. Every day.
Taisen Deshimaru
Taisen Deshimaru - Expansion of consciousness
Taisen Deshimaru (1914-1982) grew up on the island of Kyushu in Japan. He was a disciple of Kodo Sawaki, who was one of the most influential Zen masters of the 20th century in Japan: He insisted on the importance of the practice of zazen and made the practice accessible to lay people.
Shortly before his death, Kodo Sawaki ordained Taisen Deshimaru as a monk and asked him to pass on the living Zen to the West. Taisen Deshimaru brought the essence of Zen to Europe in its original freshness. In Europe he found the ideal environment to spread a Zen which is rooted in everydays life.
It was his great concern to contribute to the crisis of our civilization by spreading the practice of Zen. He had a deep desire to help today's people and to lead them through zazen to a deeper understanding of themselves and their lives, whose imbalance he felt deeply.
