Taisen Deshimaru

Think with your whole body.

— Taisen Deshimaru

Keep your hands open, and all the sands of the desert can pass through them. Close them, and all you can feel is a bit of grit.

— Taisen Deshimaru

Train the body and develop stamina and endurance. But the spirit of competition and power that presides over them is not good, it reflects a distorted vision of life. The root of the martial arts is not there.

— Taisen Deshimaru

You must concentrate upon and consecrate yourself wholly to each day, as though a fire were raging in your hair.

— Taisen Deshimaru

Zen is not a particular state but the normal state: silent, peaceful, unagitated. In Zazen neither intention, analysis, specific effort nor imagination take place. It's enough just to be without hypocrisy, dogmatism, arrogance — embracing all opposites.

— Taisen Deshimaru

If you have a glass full of liquid you can discourse forever on its qualities, discuss whether it is cold, warm, whether it is really and truly composed of H-2-O, or even mineral water, or saki. Meditation is Drinking it!

— Taisen Deshimaru

Harmonizing opposites by going back to their source is the distinctive quality of the Zen attitude, the Middle Way: embracing contradictions, making a synthesis of them, achieving balance.

— Taisen Deshimaru

We feel our shell keeps us safe, but it crushes us and others, and keeps out light and sun.

— Taisen Deshimaru

You must not take out your sword because if you try to kill someone, you must die for it yourself. What you must do instead is kill yourself, kill your own mind.

— Taisen Deshimaru

You are the strongest and the others keep their distance. It is no longer necessary to win victories over them.

— Taisen Deshimaru

To receive everything, one must open one's hands and give.

— Taisen Deshimaru

If you are not happy here and now, you never will be.

— Taisen Deshimaru

Think with your whole body.

— Taisen Deshimaru

We should learn to think with our fingers.

— Taisen Deshimaru