Skip to content

As quoted in The Enlightened Heart : An Anthology of Sacred Poetry (1989) by Stephen Mitchell, p. 50

Coming, going, the waterbirds
don't leave a trace
don't follow a path.

Another quote →

Topics

Poetry

More quotes by Dōgen

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.

Shobogenzo Zuimonki (1238)

If he cannot stop the mind that seeks after fame and profit, he will spend his life without finding peace.

Shobogenzo Zuimonki (1238)

Because monks come from the midst of purity, they consider as good and pure what does not arouse desire among other people.

Shobogenzo Zuimonki (1238)

People who truly follow the Way would do well to conceal the fact that they are Buddhists.

Shobogenzo Zuimonki (1238)

When other sects speak well of Zen, the first thing that they praise is its poverty.

Shobogenzo Zuimonki (1238)

All Dōgen quotes →

You may also like

There is a property in the horizon which no man has but he whose eye can integrate all the parts, that is, the poet.

Ralph Waldo Emerson Nature (1836)

Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality.

T. S. Eliot Tradition and the Individual Talent (1919)

Poetry, unlike oratory, should not aim at clarity...but be dense with meaning, 'something to be chewed and digested'.

George Chapman Ovid's Banquet of Sense (1595)

I am no poet, but if you think for yourselves, as I proceed, the facts will form a poem in your minds.

Michael Faraday

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Dōgen (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.