Be moderate in eating and drinking. Mindful of the passing of time, engage yourself in zazen as though saving your head from fire.
DogenRead
Do not view mountains from the scale of human thought.
Interpretation
What this quote means
One should not limit their understanding of nature's grandeur to human perspectives.
This quote by Dogen suggests that human thought is often restricted and may not fully capture the vastness and complexity of the natural world. By urging us to refrain from viewing mountains solely through the lens of our own limited understanding, it encourages a deeper appreciation of nature's majesty and the recognition that there is more to existence than what we can comprehend or rationalize.
Themes
MountainsNaturePerspectiveUnderstandingThought
In practice
Example use cases
During a philosophy discussion on the limitations of human perception.
More from Dogen
All quotes βIn the assemblies of the enlightened ones there have been many cases of mastering the Way bringing forth the heart of plants and trees; this is what awakening the mind for enlightenment is like. The fifth patriarch of Zen was once a pine-planting wayfarer; Rinzai worked on planting cedars and pines on Mount Obaku. . . . Working with plants, trees, fences and walls, if they practice sincerely they will attain enlightenment.
DogenRead
To start from the self and try to understand all things is delusion. To let the self be awakened by all things is enlightenment.
DogenRead
A fool sees himself as another, but a wise man sees others as himself.
DogenRead
Do not travel to other dusty lands, forsaking your own sitting place; if you cannot find the truth where you are now, you will never find it.
DogenRead
Do no harmful actions, do not become attached to the cycle of death and rebirth, show kindness, respect the old and have compassion for the young, do not have a heart that rejects or a heart that covets and have no worry or sadness in your heart. This is what is called enlightenment. Do not seek it elsewhere.
DogenRead
Similar quotes
I had displeased the jacobins by blaming their aristocratic usurpation of legitimate powers; the priests of all sorts by claiming religious liberty; the anarchists by repressing them; and the conspirators by rejecting their offers.
Marquis De LafayetteRead
People had been working for so many years to make the world a safe, organized place. Nobody realized how boring it would become. With the whole world property-lined and speed-limited and zoned and taxed and regulated, with everyone tested and registered and adressed and recorded. Nobody had left much room for adventure, except maybe the kind you could buy. [...] The laws that keep us safe, these same laws condemn us to boredom.
Chuck PalahniukRead
The first virtue of all really great men is that they are sincere. They eradicate hypocrisy from their hearts.
Anatole FranceRead
Morality must relate, at some level, to the well-being of conscious creatures. If there are more and less effective ways for us to seek happiness and to avoid misery in this world - and there clearly are - then there are right and wrong answers to questions of morality.
Sam HarrisRead
Lord of Lords, grant us the good whether we pray for it or not, but evil keep from us, even though we pray for it.
PlatoRead
Today I live on an island, in a house that is sad, hard, severe, that I built for myself, solitary on a sheer rock over the sea: a house that is the spectre, the secret image of prison. The image of my nostalgia. Maybe I never desired, not even then, to escape from jail. Man is not meant to live freely in freedom, but to be free inside a prison.
Curzio MalaparteRead