Students do not understand because they cling to names and sayings. Th — Linji Yixuan

"In my view, there are no things to despise and avoid If you love what’s holy, [I remind you:] ‘holy’ is just a name There are some students who go to Mt Wutai to look for Manjuśri [there in his legendary abode] Already they are in error: there is no Manjuśri on Mt Wutai Do you want to know Manjuśri? This functioning here right before your eyes has never been any different [from Manjuśri], To have no doubts anywhere—this is the living Manjuśri In the moment of non-differentiating light in your mind, the real Samanta-bhadra is everywhere When in a moment of mind you can free yourself from bondage, and be liberated wherever you are, this is Avalokiteśvara In the teaching of samaadhi, [these three bodhisattvas] take turns as central figure and companions When they come forth, it is for a certain period Each one is all three and all three of them are one Only when you understand like this can you read the scriptures properly"

"Outside of mind there is nothing, and what is within mind is also unattainable. What are you looking for? All of you people everywhere talk of having cultivation and having realization, but don’t make this mistake. Even if you gain something from cultivation, it is just the karma of birth and death."

"Even the multi-part scriptural teachings of the three vehicles are just old paper for wiping away dirt. Buddha is an illusion, an apparition. The ancestral teachers were just old monks."

"In my view, there are no buddhas and no sentient beings, no ancient and no modern. Those who attain, attain without cultivation, without realization, without gain, and without loss, for them there is never anything else but reality. ‘Even if there is anything that goes beyond this, I would say that it is like a dream or a magical illusion.’ This is what I am saying."

"People who study the Path genuinely do not grasp buddhas or bodhisattvas or arhats; they do not grasp attainments of special excellence within the triple world. They are transcendent and free and on their own—they are not constrained by things. Even if heaven and earth turn upside down, they are not in doubt. If all the buddhas of the ten directions appear before them, they feel no joy. If [all the torments of] the hungry ghosts, the animals, and the beings in hell appear before them, they feel no fear. Why are they like this? They see the emptiness of all phenomena, which exist through transformation and don’t exist without it. They see that the triple world is only mind, and the myriad things are only consciousness. Therefore, why bother to grasp [what are really] dreamlike illusions and apparitions?"

"The local officials invited Linji to preach. Linji went up to the teaching hall and said: “Today I have no alternative but to bend to human sentiment—thus I have ascended to this seat [to preach]. By the standards of the Zen school, when you attempt to extol the great matter [of enlightenment], you simply cannot open your mouth. There’s no place for you to get a foothold.”"

"Be the change that you wish to see in the world."

"we are engaged in a grim experiment never before attempted. We are subjecting whole populations to exposure to chemicals which animal experiments have proved to be extremely poisonous and in many cases cumulative in their effect. These exposures now begin at or before birth and-unless we change our methods-will continue through the lifetime of those now living. No one knows what the result will be, because we have no previous experience to guide us."

"pity this busy monster, manunkind, not. Progress is a comfortable disease: your victim (death and life safely beyond) plays with the bigness of his littleness"

"I believe that the unity of man as opposed to other living things derives from the fact that man is the conscious life of himself. Man is conscious of himself, of his future, which is death, of his smallness, of his impotence; he is aware of others as others; man is in nature, subject to its laws even if he transcends it with his thought."

"“We need brains, is the bottom line,” Ivy said. “We’re not hunter-gatherers anymore. We’re all living like patients in the intensive care unit of a hospital. What keeps us alive isn’t bravery, or athleticism, or any of those other skills that were valuable in a caveman society. It’s our ability to master complex technological skills. It is our ability to be nerds. We need to breed nerds.”"

"I have been clinically depressed for most of my life. I once used drugs to fix it. Then I stopped. I stopped because I decided they were making me stupid, and Id rather be miserable than stupid. I am what I am."