"What is needed, rather than running away or controlling or suppressing or any other resistance, is understanding fear; that means, watch it, learn about it, come directly into contact with it. We are to learn about fear, not how to escape from it."
Fear
Violence
"Violence is not merely killing another. It is violence when we use a sharp word, when we make a gesture to brush away a person, when we obey because there is fear. So violence isn't merely organized butchery in the name of God, in the name of society or country....
Losing Touch with Nature
"If you lose touch with nature you lose touch with humanity. If there's no relationship with nature then you become a killer; then you kill baby seals, whales, dolphins, and man either for gain, for sport, for food, or for knowledge. Then nature is frightened of you,...
Indication of Fear
"The constant assertion of belief is an indication of fear."
Obedience
"In obedience there is always fear, and fear darkens the mind."
Fear of Being Alone
"What is needed is not something in which you can forget your loneliness; what is needed is that you become aware of your aloneness - which is a reality. And it is so beautiful to experience it, to feel it, because it is your freedom from the crowd, from the other. It...
Drop the Fear
"Drop the fear. Fear was taken up by you in your childhood, unconsciously. Now consciously drop it and be mature. Then the life can be a light which goes on deepening as you go on growing."
The Great Love
"Zen people love Buddha so tremendously that they can even play jokes upon him. It is out of great love; they are not afraid."
The Principles
"I cannot abandon the principles which I used to hold in the past simply because this accident has happened to me; they seem to me to be much as they were, and I respect and regard the same principles now as before. So unless we can find better principles on this...
A Man of Courage
"He is a man of courage who does not run away, but remains at his post and fights against the enemy."