Zen sayings on patience and beginning again
Practice is mostly a matter of starting again: after a wandering thought, after a missed day, after a discouraging week. These sayings are about persistence that does not turn into strain, and about trusting things to ripen in their own time.
Fall down seven times, get up eight.
Japanese proverb
If you lost count of your breath, that is the practice working. Start again at one.
Sitting quietly, doing nothing, spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.
Zenrin Kushu
Some things do not need your push. Leave one of them alone today.
Mazu sat in meditation all day. Nanyue began rubbing a tile on a stone. "What are you doing?" "Polishing a tile to make a mirror." "How can polishing a tile make a mirror?" "How can sitting make a Buddha?"
Traditional story of Nanyue and Mazu
Sit without trying to become anything. Two minutes with no goal at all.
The Great Way has no gate. A thousand roads enter it.
Wumen Huikai, preface to The Gateless Gate
There is no correct place to begin. Begin from here.
Every day Ruiyan called out to himself, "Master!" and answered, "Yes!" "Are you awake?" "Yes!"
The Gateless Gate, case 12
Try it once today, quietly. Call yourself, and answer.
How do you step forward from the top of a hundred-foot pole?
The Gateless Gate, case 46
Where have you climbed as far as is comfortable, and stopped?
A monk said, "I heard of the great stone bridge of Zhaozhou, but I see only a simple log." Zhaozhou said, "You see the log and not the bridge." "What is the bridge?" "Donkeys cross it. Horses cross it."
Blue Cliff Record, case 52
A plain thing that carries everyone across is a great thing. What in your life is like that?
Sit on a cold stone for three years and it becomes warm.
Japanese proverb
Patience changes things that effort alone cannot. What deserves your patience?
Even dust, piled up, becomes a mountain.
Japanese proverb
Two minutes a day adds up. Trust the small, repeated thing.
After the rain, the ground hardens.
Japanese proverb
Difficulty often leaves us steadier. What has a hard time made firmer in you?
Even monkeys fall from trees.
Japanese proverb
Experts make mistakes too. Be kind to yourself about one today.
Zhaozhou began studying Zen at sixty. He studied until he was eighty, and then taught until he was one hundred and twenty.
Traditional account of Zhaozhou
It is not too late to begin anything worth beginning.
