"This is Zen’s fundamental point. In our essence of mind, mountains are simply mountains, flowers are flowers, and the sound of the wind is the sound of the wind. We hear, we see, and we leave each thing as we hear or see it, adding nothing at all to it.

Everything in nature has a physical body, yet a rock doesn’t call itself a rock or a flower call itself a flower. Only humans are stuck on how they are or should be. The healthiest way of being is to have no need to explain our being, but for it  to manifest naturally. We get stuck because we feel a need to explain.

Nonthought does not mean not to think; it means not to be carried away by any particular idea.

The purpose of Zen is not to become people who don’t think, but to think only what we we need to; not to be lost in unnecessary thoughts, but to see what is most necessary right now. If we cook rice, we have to think about how much to cook and how to do it the best way. If we are chopping wood, we have to think about the best way to chop, or if we grow vegetables, we have to think about the best way to cultivate them. 

Don’t think about extra things, but live totally embracing just what comes to you, not carrying thoughts about the past or wondering what’s going to happen in the future. [...] We miss the present when we carry around these kinds of thoughts. Live this moment fully in the most appropriate way."

Finding Our Essence of Mind - Shodo Harada Roshi - Tricycle: The Buddhist Review - Spring 2018

"Buddhist teachings remind us that we will never achieve real or lasting satisfaction by adopting a different, better way of thinking or acting. The effort to find happiness in this way may bring relief from the more extreme forms of anxiety to which the personality is subject, but it is nonetheless based on an endlessly replicating fantasy charged by an unquenchable, obsessive thirst that serves only to perpetuate the ego’s compulsive activity and its attendant suffering. This is the very definition of bondage to karma, the engine of a chronic existential disease. The insatiable yearning to analyze and discriminate, judge and choose — and thereby to control or shape the self in the image of its constantly shifting desires — is the elemental force of dukkha in its most basic form. It is the inescapable plight of the self.

This brings us to the central concern of Theravada Buddhism, and to mindfulness meditation as the primary means for stepping away from the whole project of searching for happiness by judging and choosing, rejecting some things while accepting others.

As practiced in the traditional Buddhist context, mindfulness is not a powerful, spiritualized form of psychotherapy, a device for fine-tuning the ego — much less a strategy for achieving “complete and invulnerable self-sufficiency.”

[...] mindfulness is not about becoming a happier, better person. It’s not about “happiness” at all — at least not if “happiness” is understood as the fulfillment of desire. Mindfulness is, rather, about wisdom rooted in insight, renunciation, and unqualified self-surrender."

Are You Looking to Buddhism When You Should Be Looking to Therapy? - C. W. Huntington, Jr - Tricycle: The Buddhist Review - Spring 2018

"Don’t recall. Let go of what has passed.
Don’t imagine. Let go of what may come.
Don’t think. Let go of what is happening now. 
Don’t examine. Don’t try to figure anything out. 
Don’t control. Don’t try to make anything happen. 
Rest. Relax, right now, and rest."

Tilopa's six nails - Repa Dorje Odzer - Tricycle: The Buddhist Review - Spring 2018