Without a rope,
people bind themselves.
Each time you bring it up,
each time it is new.
From the root,
we get the essence.
It is better not to begin.
Having begun, it is better to go all the way.
To walk in the dark
in one's best clothes.
One inch ahead of the darkness.
To bounce a ball
on the rapids.
Hopeless fellows -
using their heads to looks for their heads!
Nothing is anything except what you call it
but what you call it is not what it is.
If you understand, things are just as they are;
if you do not understand, things are just as they are.
When you point a finger at the moon,
gaze at the moon, not your finger.
With no bird singing
The mountain is yet more still.
The secret waits for eyes unclouded by longing.
Sometimes even in the driest hole
one can find water.
Hearing one,
knowing ten.
Though the bamboo forest is dense,
water flows through it freely.
When an ordinary man attains knowledge,
he becomes a sage;
when a sage attains understanding,
he is an ordinary man.
True Zen is no Zen.
