
Online interview "Questions to Master Deshimaru" at zen-deshimaru.com https://web.archive.org/web/20111008034614/http://www.zen-deshimaru.com/EN/sangha/deshimaru/q-r/0101.htm
Online interview http://www.zen-deshimaru.com/EN/sangha/deshimaru/q-r/0101.htm
Context: Religions remain what they are. Zen is meditation. Meditation is the foundation of every religion. People today feel an intense need to go back to the source of religious life, to the pure essence in the depths of themselves which they can discover only through actually experiencing it. They also need to be able to concentrate their minds in order to find the highest wisdom and freedom, which is spiritual in nature, in their efforts to deal with the influences of every description imposed upon them by their environment. Human wisdom alone is not enough, it is not complete. Only universal truth can provide the highest wisdom. Take away the word Zen and put Truth or Order of the Universe in its place.
Online interview "Questions to Master Deshimaru" at zen-deshimaru.com https://web.archive.org/web/20111008034614/http://www.zen-deshimaru.com/EN/sangha/deshimaru/q-r/0101.htm
From 1980s onwards, Critical Path (1981)
The Glass Bead Game (1943)
Context: "If only there were a dogma to believe in. Everything is contradictory, everything tangential; there are no certainties anywhere. Everything can be interpreted one way and then again interpreted in the opposite sense. The whole of history can be explained as development and progress and can also be seen as nothing but decadence and meaninglessness. Isn't there any truth? Is there no real and valid doctrine?"
The Master had never heard him speak so fervently. He walked on in silence for a little, then said, "There is truth, my boy. But the doctrine you desire, absolute, perfect dogma that alone provides wisdom, does not exist. Nor should you long for a perfect doctrine, my friend. Rather, you should long for the perfection of yourself. The deity is within you, not in ideas and books. Truth is lived, not taught. Be prepared for conflicts, Joseph Knecht — I can see they have already begun."
“Wisdom will not be complete except by following the truth.”
Majlisi, Bihārul Anwār, vol.78, p. 127
Regarding Wisdom
“Wisdom is found only in truth.”
“In accordance with the divine wisdom, genesis can only take place through destruction”
Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.12
Context: In accordance with the divine wisdom, genesis can only take place through destruction, and without destruction of the individual members of the species the species themselves would not exist permanently. Thus the true kindness, and beneficence, and goodness of God is clear.