The Masao Quotes & Sayings

Drying her eyes, Mother said to Totto-chan very slowly, You're Japanese and Masao-chan comes from a country called Korea. But he's a child, just like you. So, Totto-chan, dear, don't ever think of people as different. Don't think, 'That person's a Japanese, or this person's a Korean.' Be nice to Masao-chan. It's so sad that some people think other people aren't nice just because they're Koreans. — Tetsuko Kuroyanagi

Zen is a double-edged sword, killing words and thoughts, yet at the same time, giving them life. Although beyond human intellect and philosophy, Zen is their root and source. — Masao Abe

When Death puts out our Flame, the Snuff will tell, If we were Wax, or Tallow by the smell. — Masao Abe

In Buddhism, compassion always goes with wisdom. Compassion without wisdom is not understood to be true compassion, and wisdom without compassion is not true wisdom. — Masao Abe

To think that practice and realization are not one is a heretical view. In the Buddha Dharma, practice and realization are identical. Because one's present practice is practice in realization, one's initial negotiating of the Way in itself is the whole of original realization. Thus, even while directed to practice, one is told not to anticipate a realization apart from practice, because practice points directly to original realization. — Masao Abe

When one existentially awakens from within, the relation of birth-and-death is not seen as a sequential change from the former to the latter. Rather, living as it is, is no more than dying, and at the same time there is no living separate from dying. This means that life itself is death and death itself is life. That is, we do not shift sequentially from birth to death, but undergo living-dying in each and every moment. — Masao Abe

The photographer from the magazine, Masao Kageyama, would ride along in the van that accompanied me. He'd take pictures as they drove along. It wasn't a real race, and there weren't any water stations, so I'd occasionally stop to get water from the van. The Greek summer is truly brutal, and I knew I'd have to be careful not to get dehydrated.
"Mr. Murakami," Mr. Kageyama said, surprised as he saw me getting ready to run, "you're not really thinking of running the whole route, are you?"
"Of course I am. That's why I came here."
"Really? But when we do these kinds of projects most people don't go all the way. We just take some photos, and most of them don't finish the whole route. So you really are going to run the
entire thing?"
Sometimes the world baffles me. I can't believe that people would really do things like that. — Haruki Murakami

Emptiness is not a mere emptiness, but rather fullness in which the distinctiveness of everything is throughly realized. — Masao Abe

Are you there, Felix? Are you there? — John Steakley

You are
What you do
When it counts"
- The Masao — John Steakley

Buddhist nirvana ... is based on egolessness and is not anthropocentric but rather cosmological. In Buddhism, humans and the things of the universe are equally subject to change, equally subject to transitoriness or transmigration. A person cannot achieve emancipation from the cycle of birth and death until he or she can eliminate a more universal problem: the transience common to all things in the universe. — Masao Abe

Science without religion is dangerous because it necessarily entails a mechanization of humanity and consequent loss of individual autonomy and spirituality. On the other hand, religion without science is powerless because it lacks an effective means through which to actualize the ultimate reality. Science and religion must work together harmoniously. — Masao Abe

As a rule, the extent to which politics can become the object of free scientific inquiry is a most accurate barometer by which to measure the degree of academic freedom in a country. — Masao Maruyama