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.
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.
If 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!
You must concentrate upon and consecrate yourself wholly to each day, as though a fire were raging in your hair.
Train 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.
Keep 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.
Mondo session with Master Taisen Deshimaru at the Zen Temple in La Gendronniere (France).
Zen master Taisen DESHIMARU explains in a laconic way what the practice of zazen consists of.
Documentary film by Michel Bovay and Philipp Funk, based on images provided by the International Zen Association (AZI).