17 Quotes by Issai Chozanshi

Man is a moving being. If he does not move to what is good, he will surely move to that what is not. If this consciousness does not arise here, another consciousness will arise there. Man’s mind goes through multifarious changes and never stops.

Thus, there is nothing that is hidden. And it is just like this in Learning. For the disciples of Lao Tzu, the Buddha, Chuang Tzu, Lieh Tzu, Ch’ao Fu, and Hsu Yu,53 they were one in seeing the essence of mind in selflessness and absence of desire. Thus, they had not a hair’s breadth of selfish thought in their heads to encumber them. It was simply that the landscape they saw was different, and so in their separation, their schools were different.

When you leave things to Heaven, but have not done everything you could in human affairs, you will not have understood Heaven’s Way. You will just be waiting for things to happen of their own accord, and this is called entrusting things to fate. For the moment, however, it could be said that if you are confused and unsettled, you should go ahead and leave things to fate.

The wise and sagacious men of ancient times had the very spirit of the martial and did not kill.

Nowadays, people are shallow and their resolution is not in earnest. They dislike the strenuous and love the easy from the time they are young. When they see something vaguely clever, they want to learn it right away; but if taught in the manner of the old ways, they think it not worth learning. Nowadays, the way is revealed by the instructor, the deepest principles are taught even to beginners, the end result is set right out in front, and the student is led along by the hand.

What I am calling ‘Not One Thing’ means neither being taken by nor drawn toward phenomena, that there is neither opponent nor myself,17 and that there is nothing more than following phenomena as they come, responding to them, and leaving no traces.

This is like a boat following a current downstream. Though you can say that it moves, the boat is at rest and there is no trace of that movement. This is called ’moving without moving.’36.

The wise men and men of noble character in the past who were wealthy and exalted were rare. From time to time there were men who received high rank and large stipends, but they did not pursue such things themselves; because the genius and virtues of these men were not hidden, they were promoted by their superiors, and thus only received these things unavoidably. But because they were not always in tune with the minds of men of little caliber, many of them were slandered and driven away.

Selfish thoughts are born from a mind bent on its own profit. And when you think only about your own profit, you will not think twice about how you harm others. In the end, you will create perversity, generate evil, and even destroy your own body.