There Is No Beginning To Practice Nor

Students, When You Want To Say Something, Think About It Three Times Before You Say It. Speak Only If Your Words Will Benefit Yourselves And Others. Do Not Speak If It Brings No Benefit.

In 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.

Mountains And Oceans Have Whole Worlds Of Innumerable Wondrous Features. We Should Understand That It Is Not Only Our Distant Surroundings That Are Like This, But Even What Is Right Here, Even A Single Drop Of Water.

To Study The Buddha Way Is To Study The Self. To Study The Self Is To Forget The Self. To Forget The Self Is To Be Actualized By Myriad Things. When Actualized By Myriad Things, Your Body And Mind As Well As The Bodies And Minds Of Others Drop Away. No Trace Of Realization Remains, And This No Trace Continues Endlessly.

Cease From Practice Based On Intellectual Understanding, Pursuing Words, And Following After Speech.