Do your work

Then rest peacefully

Let each moment

Be an exercise in mindfulness

Let each day pass

In accord with the Tao

If something is fashionable, it is not long lasting. If something is hot, it can get just as cold. If something is ‘in’, it can become ‘out’ just as fast. The avant garde becomes the old guard. Only seek those things that are long lasting such as Tao. It is always there, through the oppressive heat and the bitter cold. Through the good times and the lean ones. Through old age and beyond.

How unfortunate it is

That man considers himself

Ruler over earth

When the opposite is true

Earth can get along without man just fine

Can man get along without earth?

Enlightenment is not the end of the journey, but the journey itself. If you were traveling by train to somewhere exotic, would you only look out the window when you arrived? Close the shade while all the beauty passes by you? Or, perhaps you would be enjoying all the scenery as you traveled through the countryside, the mountains, the valleys. The final destination is not as important as the journey itself.

There are countless caves up in the mountains where monks and holy men sit and practice. Every moment, day or night, they are practicing metta. They are sending loving-kindness to you. Remember, you are always loved. Metta is being sent to you. People care about you. Do not ever forget it, and do not squander this great gift.

From the point of view of the way

those who act in excessive behaviors

and useless endeavors

are people who are not in harmony

With the Way

If not in harmony with the way

The walk is uphill

Against the wind

In quicksand

You cannot rely on superstition, you cannot rely on the weatherman. You cannot trust the lawyer. You cannot trust the politician. You cannot depend on your teacher. Do not depend on your preacher. Do not rely on your paycheck. However, you can trust the Tao, what could be more reliable and true than what guides the universe?

Enlightenment is intimacy with all things- Dogen Zenji

A man of the way conforms to the way;
A man of virtue conforms to virtue;
A man of loss conforms to loss.
He who conforms to the way is gladly accepted by the way;
He who conforms to virtue is gladly accepted by virtue;
He who conforms to loss is gladly accepted by loss.

A bench cushion is squeezed down when one sits upon it, but it soon resumes its original shape when the pressure is removed. So it is with worldly men. They are full of religious sentiments, so long as they hear religious talks; but no sooner do they enter into the daily routine of the world, than they forget all those high and noble thoughts, and become as impure as before. Or there are those that enjoy listening to a talk, but once the talk runs longer than they thought it would, they are rattling their keys and shifting around in their seats; anxious to leave. Such people have no connection with the Tao.