Kosho Uchiyama famous quotes

03-25-2025

The first undeniable reality is that every living thing dies, and the second undeniable reality is that we suffer throughout our lives because we don't understand death. The truth derived from these two points is the importance of clarifying the matter of birth and death. The third undeniable reality is that all of the thoughts and feelings that arise in my head simply arise haphazardly, by chance. And the conclusion we can derive from that is not to hold on to all that comes up in our head. That is what we are doing when we sit zazen.
-- Kosho Uchiyama

#Death #Truth #Reality
Our life is whatever we are encountering right now, and our practice is shikantaza, which is literally 'just sitting.' More broadly it means to put our energy into settling everything in our world here and now, where we really live.
-- Kosho Uchiyama

#Mean #Our World #Practice
Your true self is beyond either relying on others or avoiding them in order to know who you are.
-- Kosho Uchiyama

#Self #Order #Avoiding
When we let go of all our notions about things, everything becomes really true.
-- Kosho Uchiyama

#Letting Go #Really True #Notion
Everything you encounter is your life.
-- Kosho Uchiyama

#Encounters
Whatever way you put it, I am here only because my world is here. When I took my first breath, my world was born with me. When I die, my world dies with me. In other words, I wasn't born into a world that was already here before me, nor do I live simply as one individual among millions of other individuals, nor do I leave everything behind to live on after me. People live thinking of themselves as members of a group or society. However, this isn't really true. Actually, I bring my own world into existence, live it out, and take it with me when I die.
-- Kosho Uchiyama

#Thinking #People #Groups
The power of life that is buried deep inside you will never rise up until you have become convinced that you're walking the only path open for you.
-- Kosho Uchiyama

#Path #Buried #Walking

Cursed is the man who dies, but the evil done by him survives.
Every one disguising the truth from a man who has a right to the truth is wrong, and ought not to be encouraged.
You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.
There is another old poet whose name I do not now remember who said, 'Truth is the daughter of Time.'
The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform. It can follow analysis; but it has no power of anticipating any analytical relations or truths. Its province is to assist us to making available what we are already acquainted with.
I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends... that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them.
If you win, you need not have to explain...If you lose, you should not be there to explain!
Get up now and go and find Robert Kilroy-Silk. Smile in a warm, friendly sort of way, then punch him on the nose. Now go and find Robert on television, despite my best endeavours, this is still relatively easy to do. Wait for a close-up, same smile, and punch him on the nose. If you followed the instructions carefully, you will have noticed a distinct difference. On the one hand, you were suffused with a sense of public-spirited righteousness; on the other, you're probably dribbling blood. That's the difference between reality in life and reality on television.
There is a beautiful and life-enhancing alternative outlook that offers insight, consolation, inspiration and meaning, which has nothing to do with religion, and everything to do with the best, most generous, most sympathetic understanding of human reality.
We hope we're better. The reality is we had a pretty darn good team last year. But you can't just throw your gloves out there and be good again. We want to take that next step as a team.

Kosho Uchiyama famous quotes

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