“The Beatific Vision, Sat Chit Ananda, Being-Awareness-Bliss-for the first time I understood, not on the verbal level, not by inchoate hints or at a distance, but precisely and completely what those prodigious syllables referred to. And then I remembered a passage I had read in one of Suzuki's essays. “What is the Dharma-Body of the Buddha?” ('“the Dharma-Body of the Buddha” is another way of saying Mind, Suchness, the Void, the Godhead.) The question is asked in a Zen monastery by an earnest and bewildered novice. And with the prompt irrelevance of one of the Marx Brothers, the Master answers, “The hedge at the bottom of the garden.” “And the man who realizes this truth,” the novice dubiously inquires, “what, may I ask, is he?””

— Aldous Huxley , book The Doors of Perception

Groucho gives him a whack over the shoulders with his staff and answers, “A golden-haired lion.”
The Doors of Perception (1954)

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Aldous Huxley 290

English writer 1894–1963

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“Right and wrong are temporal, but time is neither right nor wrong. Right and wrong are the Dharma, but the Dharma is neither right nor wrong. In the balance of the Dharma, wrong is balanced. In the balance of the Dharma, right is balanced.
And so, in learning of complete and utter Awakening, in hearing the Teachings, doing the training, and realizing the effect, this is profound, vast, and wonderful. Some hear of unsurpassed Awakening from good friends, and some hear of it from the sutras. What one hears first is, "Not doing wrong action." If one does not hear “not doing wrong action,” one is not hearing the Buddhas' true Dharma but demonic talk. Know that hearing “not doing wrong action” is hearing the Buddhas' true Dharma.”

Dogen (1200–1253) Japanese Zen buddhist teacher

"Shoaku makusa : Not Doing Wrong Action" as translated by Anzan Hoshin roshi and Yasuda Joshu Dainen roshi (2007)

“It had been, when I read it, only a vaguely pregnant piece of nonsense. Now it was all as clear as day, as evident as Euclid. Of course the Dharma-Body of the Buddha was the hedge at the bottom of the garden. At the same time, and no less obviously, it was these flowers, it was anything that I—or rather the blessed Not-I, released for a moment from my throttling embrace—cared to look at.”

Aldous Huxley book The Doors of Perception

describing his experiment with mescaline, pp. 18-19
The Doors of Perception (1954)

“To the Buddhas of the ten directions
I join my hands in respect
Let blaze the light of Dharmas truth
For the beings lost in darkness”

Šantidéva (685–763) 8th-century Indian Buddhist monk and scholar

Bodhicaryavatara

“The Lord is the refuge of all who seek refuge, the saviour of all who have to be saved. He is the Embodiment of Being-Awareness-Bliss (Sat-chit-ananda). He is now at Puttaparthi as the Effulgent Emperor over the region of Truth, Goodness and Beauty.”

Sathya Sai Baba (1926–2011) Indian guru

Sathya Sai Speaks Vol. 13, p 114

“The buddha nature, or tathagatagarbha, is present in all beings, but is hidden by obscurations, in the same way that buried gold is hidden by the earth under which it lies. As you listen to, reflect, and meditate on the Dharma, all the inherent qualities of your buddha nature will be actualized.”

Dilgo Khyentse (1910–1991) Bhutanese Buddhist Lama

The Heart of Compassion (2006)

“This capacity of waking up, of being aware of what is going on in your feelings, in your body, in your perceptions, in the world, is called Buddha nature, the capacity of understanding and loving.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Being Peace (2005)
Context: Children understand very well that in each woman, in each man, in each child, there is capacity of waking up, of understanding, and of loving. Many children have told me that they cannot show me anyone who does not have this capacity. Some people allow it to develop, and some do not, but everyone has it. This capacity of waking up, of being aware of what is going on in your feelings, in your body, in your perceptions, in the world, is called Buddha nature, the capacity of understanding and loving. Smiling is very important. If we are not able to smile, then the world will not have peace. It is not by going out for a demonstration against nuclear missiles that we can bring about peace. It is with our capacity of smiling, breathing, and being peace that we can make peace.

“Truth, revealed in all things. Buddha revealed in all things. Dharma revealed in all things.”

Soko Morinaga (1925–1995) Japanese Zen buddhist monk

Novice to Master : An Ongoing Lesson in the Extent of My Own Stupidity (2002), p. 34
Context: When a Zen Monk writes the word "dew," it is not to the natural phenomenon that he refers, but to direct revelation. Nothing concealed anywhere. Truth, revealed in all things. Buddha revealed in all things. Dharma revealed in all things. If you all just let the scales drop from your eyes, you realize that everything everywhere is filled with truth; everything is filled with Buddha; everything everywhere is to be appreciated! That is what the scroll of "dew" is hanging there to say.

“There’s a passage where [the Buddha] contrasts his way of teaching with what he calls training in bombast. Training in bombast is where you’re taught things that are very poetic, that sound very high, very lovely, very inspiring, but no one is encouraged to ask what, precisely, they mean. After all, in bombast there really is no precise meaning. It’s all just vague, high-sounding words. But, as the Buddha said, he taught cross-questioning. Your training with him was in cross-questioning. When there was a teaching you didn’t understand, he encouraged you to ask, “What’s the meaning of this? What’s the purpose of that? How far should this word be taken?””

Thanissaro Bhikkhu (1949) Theravadin Buddhist Monk and Scholar

That way, wherever there are any doubts or uncertainties, you can clear them up.
Conviction and Confidence (2010)

“I went one afternoon to the church of my childhood and had a vision of what I must have really meant with "Beat"… the vision of the word Beat as being to mean beatific…”

Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American writer

"The Origins of the Beat Generation" in Playboy (June 1959)
Context: I went one afternoon to the church of my childhood and had a vision of what I must have really meant with "Beat"… the vision of the word Beat as being to mean beatific... People began to call themselves beatniks, beats, jazzniks, bopniks, bugniks and finally I was called the "avatar" of all this.

“Be calm. Be Zen. You are Buddha.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: Nevermore

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Aldous Huxley 290

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