You just go ahead ...

We worry about our adequacy. Am I skillful enough? Am I good enough to do what I am doing? It is so uncertain, and at some point, there’s no help for it. To find our way in life, we will have to have some strong conviction. We’ll just have to go ahead. If you wait until you’re good enough or you’re skilful enough or until you are sure of yourself and are certain to get it right, it may never happen. At some point there’s no help for it, and you just go ahead ...
... You start from where you are standing still, and you accelerate yourself into activity - into hearing and seeing and acting - where things are coming along. But at the same time, there’s no help for it. If you wait for I’m inspired or I’m sure it’s okay, then your whole life may be spent waiting. And over time you may find that worse than going ahead.

From Edward Espe Brown, The Most Important Point (Boulder, 2019)

... what is the mind?

"You ask, that's your mind. I answer, that's my mind. If I had no mind, how could I answer? If you had no mind, how could you ask? That which asks is your mind."

Damo (Bodhidharma)

As though he did not have it

Delectable indeed is this state.
But he who has it, said the Master with a subtle smile, would do well to have it as though he did not have it.
Only unbroken equanimity can accept it in such a way that it is not afraid to come back.

Japanese master archer Awa Kenzo, as reported in Eugen Herrigel, Zen and the Art of Archery (London, 1953).

To be one with nature

Saigyo in traditional poetry, Sogi in linked verse, Sesshu in painting, Rikyu in tea ceremony, and indeed all who have achieved real excellence in any art, possess one thing in common, that is, a mind to obey nature, to be one with nature, throughout the four seasons of the year.

From Matsuo Basho 'The Records of a Travel-worn Satchel', translated by Nobuyuki Yuasa in The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches (London, 1966).

On Cold Mountain Road

On Cold Mountain Road
no one arrives
those who walk it
are called ten names
cicadas sing
crows don't screech
yellow leaves fall
white clouds sweep
rocks are huge
woods are deep
I live here alone
I'm called the Guide
look around
what are my signs

From The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain, translated by Red Pine (Port Townsend, 2000).

My abode

If someone asks
My abode
I reply:
"The east edge of
The Milky Way."

Like a drifting cloud,
Bound by nothing:
I just let go
Giving myself up
To the whim of the wind.

From Dewdrops on a Lotus Leaf. Zen Poems of Ryokan, translated by John Stevens (Boston, 2004).