There is no independent existence. There is no you and no me apart from other people and the earth and the wind and the sun. We exist because of numberless causal factors—our genetics, the love of our mothers and fathers, our place in time, the food we eat, the air we breathe, the water we drink, and so on. And we are defined by our relationships to others and to our world. This is the matrix in which we act. When designing a garden we will again and again remind ourselves of this and cultivate the mind that thinks in unfolding, evolving energetic systems. Because a garden is a complete mandala, its parts relate to one another. Together they form one whole energetic system. The parts are inseparable from the whole, and the whole is inseparable from its parts, and both are in process of changing.

A Zen garden can say as much about what the Buddha taught as the most erudite treatise on emptiness.

I, together with all existence awaken!

I only go out to get me a fresh appetite for being alone.

Stop leaving and you will arrive.

Where can I find a man who has forgotten words? He is the one I would like to talk to.

We do not have to be afraid of entering unfamiliar territory once we have learned how to hold experience within the gentleness of our own minds. Learning to transform obstacles into objects of meditation provides a much needed bridge between the stillness of the concentrated mind and the movement of real life.

The Great Way of the Buddha-Law is: in a grain of dust are all the scrolls of the sutras in the universe; in a grain of dust are all the infinite Buddhas.

When the student asked, “I am very discouraged. What should I do?” Zen master Soen Nakagawa replied, “Encourage others.”

Even though we cannot see clearly how it’s going to turn out, we are still called to let the future into our imagination. We will never be able to build what we have not first cherished in our hearts.

Asking “Who is the villain?” is the prologue to asking who should be punished. But asking “What are the conditions that led to this?” leads us to consider how to change those conditions so that the situation is less likely to happen again.

It is because our way of observing things is deeply rooted in our self-centered ideas that we are disappointed when we find everything has only a tentative existence. But when we actually realize this truth, we will have no suffering.

Implicit in Buddhist compassion is a genuine awareness and deep acceptance of things as they truly are, painful as that may be. From this soil of clarity and connection, compassion is said to arise of itself.

Awareness practice is like any other skill-building activity. It is not meant to be casual, or occasional, or reserved for only when convenient.

Shakyamuni Buddha taught that all suffering can be overcome by understanding its true nature. This is a profound and subtle process. It can take a while.

It’s our nature to want happiness and not want suffering. Thus, Buddhists do not ask that one give up the pursuit of happiness, but merely suggest that one become more intelligent about how happiness is pursued.

The more we can get the self out of the way, the more clearly we can see the effect of our thoughts, words, and action upon ourselves and others.

Buddhism asks us to go beyond the self, not to perfect the self.

Anxiety, heartbreak, and tenderness mark the in-between state. It's the kind of place we usually want to avoid. The challenge is to stay in the middle rather than buy into struggle and complaint. The challenge is to let it soften us rather than make us more rigid and afraid.

The solution does not lie in returning to nature. We cannot return to nature, because we have never left it.