Leaving behind

Same message, different traditions, same time period

If people seek peace in outward things, whether in places or in methods or in people or in deeds … however great or of whatever kind all this may be, this is all in vain and brings them no peace. Those who seek thus seek wrongly; the further they go the less they find what they are seeking. They are like one who has taken a wrong turning: the further he goes, the more he goes astray. But what should he do? In truth, if one gave up a kingdom or the whole world and did not give up self, he or she would have given up nothing. But if one gives up oneself, then whatever one keeps, wealth, honour or whatever it may be, still they have given up everything.  

Meister Eckhart, German theologian, philosopher and mystic, 1260 – 1328

To study the self is to forget the self. 
To forget the self is to be enlightened by the ten thousand things 

Dogen, Buddhist monk and philosopher, founder of the Soto school of Zen, 1200 – 1253,

 

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