Deshimaru Quotes & Sayings

I believe [the Department of Energy] should be judged not by the money we direct to a particular State or district, company, university or national lab, but by the character of our decisions. The Department of Energy serves the country as a Department of Science, a Department of Innovation, and a Department of Nuclear Security. — Steven Chu

There is more of a nation's politics to be got out of its poetry than out of all its systematic writers on public affairs and constitutions. — Woodrow Wilson

Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears; and sometimes voices, That, if I then had waked after long sleep, Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming, The clouds methought would open, and show riches Ready to drop upon me; that, when I waked, I cried to dream again. STE. — William Shakespeare

When you aren't sowing into the soil of the universe, you notice that things in your life just seem to dry up and get worse. But when you sow back into the universe with your time, your passion, and your commitment to others, the world will offer abundant opportunities for you to blossom into the new you. — Steve Harvey

Think with the whole body. — Taisen Deshimaru

What 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

Your world and the cat's world are not the same. — Taisen Deshimaru

In a fight between a strong technique and a strong body, technique will prevail. In a fight between a strong mind and a strong technique, mind will prevail, because it will find the weak point. — Taisen Deshimaru

Zen is not a particular state but the normal state: silent, peaceful, unagitated. In Zazen neither intention, analysis, specific effort nor imagination take place. It's enough just to be without hypocrisy, dogmatism, arrogance - embracing all opposites. — Taisen Deshimaru

You must concentrate upon and consecrate yourself wholly to each day, as though a fire were raging in your hair. — Taisen Deshimaru

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 sake. Meditation is Drinking it! — Taisen Deshimaru

It's sometimes hard to wrap your head around a big story, and for most of us drawing editorial cartoons 9/11/ 01, that was the biggest story of our professional lives. — Steve Breen

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 Deshimaru

The world is not real for me until it has been pushed through the mesh of language. — John Banville

Think with your whole body. — Taisen Deshimaru

Then her Truthwitchery exploded - a coating, scraping sensation against her neck that heralded wrongness. — Susan Dennard

The important thing is not to lie to yourself. He who lies to himself and listens to his own lies reaches a state in which he no longer recognizes truth either in himself or in others, and so he ceases to respect both himself and others. Having ceased to respect everyone, he stops loving, and then, in the absence of love, in order to occupy and divert himself, he abandons himself to passions and the gratification of coarse pleasures until his vices bring him down to the level of bestiality, and all on account of his being constantly false both to himself and to others. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

That this, right here, right now, is our life. It is not our parents' or our children's, not our husbands' or our wives'. It is not made more or less valuable by our job or how much we have in the bank. Our life is ours. It is the only one we will ever have. And we should love it. — Rob Lowe

During zazen, brain and consciousness become pure. It's exactly like muddy water left to stand in a glass. Little by little, the sediment sinks to the bottom and the water becomes pure. — Taisen Deshimaru

Behavior influences consciousness. Right behavior means right consciousness. Our attitude here and now influences the entire environment: our words, actions, ways of holding and moving ourselves, they all influence what happens around us and inside us. The actions of every instant, every day, must be right ... Every gesture is important. How we eat, how we put on our clothes, how we wash ourselves, how we go to the toilet, how we put our things away, how we act with other people, family, wife, work - how we are: totally, in every single gesture. — Taisen Deshimaru

Everything in the universe is connected
Everything is osmosis
You cannot separate any part from the whole
Interdependence rules the cosmic order. — Taisen Deshimaru

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. — Taisen Deshimaru

Human beings are afraid of dying. They are always running after something: money, honor, and pleasure. But if you had to die now, what would you want? — Taisen Deshimaru

We feel our shell keeps us safe, but it crushes us and others, and keeps out light and sun. — Taisen Deshimaru

Time is not a line, but a series of now-points. — Taisen Deshimaru

You have to practice until you die. — Taisen Deshimaru

If we achieve satori and the satori shows, like a bit of dogshit stuck to the top of our nose, that is not so good. — Taisen Deshimaru

In the morning I stand up, scratch a little bit, then I light a candle and I meditate. Every morning. I've been meditating for maybe 20 years. I meditate so I can make choices; so I'm not a sheep all the time. So I can see better than what everyone else is doing. — Russell Simmons

Nobody today is normal, everybody is a little bit crazy or unbalanced, people's minds are running all the time. Their perceptions of the world are partial, incomplete. They are eaten alive by their egos. They think they see, but they are mistaken; all they do is project their madness, their world, upon the world. There is no clarity, no wisdom in that! — Taisen Deshimaru

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. — Taisen Deshimaru

To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The natives of Silicon Valley learned long ago that when you share your knowledge with someone else, one plus one usually equals three. You both learn each other's ideas, and you come up with new ones. — Vivek Wadhwa

Descartes said, "I think, therefore I am." I say, "I do not think, that is why I exist." — Taisen Deshimaru

The innocence of childhood is like the innocence of a lot of animals. — Clint Eastwood

If you are not happy here and now, you never will be. — Taisen Deshimaru

Ambition distorts even memory itself. John Quincy Adams — Paul C. Nagel

From your first day at school you are cut off from life to make theories. — Taisen Deshimaru

To practice Zen or the Martial Arts, you must live intensely, wholeheartedly, without reserve - as if you might die in the next instant — Taisen Deshimaru

We should learn to think with our fingers. — Taisen Deshimaru

To receive everything, one must open one's hands and give. — Taisen Deshimaru