To study the Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by the ten thousand things.

仏道をならふといふは、自己をならふなり。自己をならふといふは、自己をわするるなり。自己をわするるといふは、万法に証せらるるなり。

Dōgen

Philosophers

Dōgen

Japanese Zen monk (1200-1253), founder of the Sōtō school. After studying in Song China under Tiantong Rujing, he taught shikantaza — "just sitting" — and wrote the Shōbōgenzō, admired by Watsuji and Steve Jobs.

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Source: 道元『正法眼蔵』現成公案巻Verified

Dōgen's Other Quotes

Just sit.

The first concern of one who studies the Way is to leave behind ego-clinging views.

Body and mind fallen away.

Related Quotes

For Being is, and non-Being is not.

-- Parmenides

Philosophy is the knowledge of beings qua beings.

-- Farabi

For whom emptiness works, everything works. For whom emptiness does not work, nothing works.

-- Nagarjuna

All things flow.

-- Heraclitus

Unless it grows out of yourself no knowledge is really yours, it is only a borrowed plumage.

-- D. T. Suzuki

Despair is a sickness of the self, a sickness unto death.

-- Søren Kierkegaard