“Once Seung Sahn Soen-sa and a student of his attended a talk at a Zen center in California. The Dharma teacher spoke about Bodhidharma. After the talk, someone asked him "What's the difference between Bodhidharma's sitting in Sorim for nine years and your sitting here now?"The Dharma teacher said, "About five thousand miles."The questioner said, "Is that all?"The Dharma teacher said, "Give or take a few miles."Later on, Soen-sa asked his student, "What do you think of these answers?""Not bad, not good. But the dog runs after the bone.""How would you answer?""I'd say, 'Why do you make a difference?' "Soen-sa said, "Not bad. Now you ask me.""What's the difference between Bodhidharma's sitting in Sorim for nine years and your sitting here now?""Don't you know?""I'm listening.""Bodhidharma sat in Sorim for nine years. I am sitting here now."The student smiled.”

“Here, let me break it down for you,so you know what I say is true:Teachers? Teachers make a difference! Now what about you?”

“I sit here very respectfully to listen to you. If what you want to do is put on a show and giggle every time I talk, well then I have no interest in answering your question. So if you'd like to conduct a respectful conversation, I'm happy to do it. If you don't, sit down and I'll answer the next question. What's your choice?”

“Here's a practice idea for right now. Choose one of those sets of phrases. ... Plan on taking some time to say those words over and over, as you would an ardent prayer. Set some time aside for this. (Fifteen minutes would be a good start.) Then sit comfortably. Later on, you can say these phrases walking about or doing chores or even riding your bike--but for now, just sit. That way you can look at the words."Say each phrase as if you expect it will feel different in your mind--they are slightly different wishes--and feel how each of them echoes in your mind and body. [pp. 72-73]”

“Not long after the book came out I found myself being driven to a meetingby a professor of electrical engineering in the graduate school I of MIT. He said that after reading the book he realized that his graduate students were using on him, and had used for the ten years and more he had been teaching there, all the evasive strategies I described in the book — mumble, guess-and-look, take a wild guess and see what happens, get the teacher to answer his own questions, etc.But as I later realized, these are the games that all humans play when othersare sitting in judgment on them.”

“The difference between a beginning teacher and an experienced one is that the beginning teacher asks, "How am I doing?" and the experienced teacher asks, How are the children doing?”