At the very moment of sitting, what is sitting? Is it an acrobat’s graceful somersault or the rapid darting of a fish? Is it thinking or not thinking? Is it doing or not doing? Is it sitting within sitting? Is it sitting within body-mind? Is it sitting letting go of sitting within sitting, or letting go of sitting within body-mind? Investigate this in every possible way. Sit in the body’s meditation posture. Sit in the mind’s meditation posture. Sit in the meditation posture of letting go of body-mind.

Dogen Zenji

from the book The Essential Dogen: Writings of the Great Zen Master

translated by Kazuaki Tanahashi


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Further quotes from the book The Essential Dogen:

• Undivided activity
• Beneficial action is an act of oneness
• Since this word is already expounded
• Countless blossoms
• Enlightenment poem