I pause in my gardening to look at a bird overhead whose cry has broken the silence. A refreshing wind….dries the sweat on my brow. Joy in life, joy in work, wells up in me.

“The wind is cold today, isn’t it” comments an elderly woman passing by. Does one feel the breeze as refreshing or as a heartlessly cold wind? The difference lies not in the wind but in the person perceiving it

Centuries ago, when Chao-chou asked Zen Master Nan-chuan if he should seek the Way, Nan-chuan answered, “If you try for it, you will become separated from it”

That which we call paradise or happiness…cannot be sought outside us. It will be found only when we notice that we are inherently endowed with it.

Shundo Aoyama, Zen Seeds