If you do it properly, life is art, really.
Zen values the simple, concrete, living facts of everyday direct personal experience.
Emotions are not 'bad. ' At the roots of our emotions are primal energies which can be put to fruitful use. Indeed. . . the energies of enlightenment arises from the very same natural origins as those which give rise to our everyday passions and emotions.
Chance favors those in motion.
The early masters also introduced walking meditation and hard work to the monastery, for too much sitting could reach the point of diminishing returns.
The fundamental delusion of humanity is to suppose that I am here (pointing to himself) and you are out there.
When can our brain's innate objectivity begin to flourish? Only when our inappropriate Self-centered subjectivity begins to dissolve.
Of two pleasures, if there be one which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure.
By tuning in to your minute-to-minute stream of consciousness, you discover the addictions that make you worried, anxious, resentful, uptight, afraid, angry, bored, etc. You thus use every uncomfortable emotion as an opportunity for consciousness growth. Even though you may still be feeling emotional and uptight, you begin to get at the roots of your ups and downs - your brief bits of pleasure and your long periods of unhappiness.
People always got the image I was an anti-Christ or antireligion. I'm not. I'm a most religious fellow. I was brought up a Christian and I only now understand some of the things that Christ was saying in those parables. Because people got hooked on the teacher and missed the message. All this bit about electing a President. We pick our own daddy out of a dog pound of daddies.
Since everything is but an apparition, having nothing to do with good or bad, acceptance or rejection, one may well burst out in laughter.