Zen Quotes

The sun shines, snow falls, mountains rise and valleys sink, night deepens and pales into day, but it is only very seldom that we attend to such things. . . . When we are grasping the inexpressible meaning of these things, this is life, this is living. To do this twenty-four hours a day is the Way of Haiku. It is having life more abundantly.

The right art," cried the Master, "is purposeless, aimless! The more obstinately you try to learn how to shoot the arrow for the sake of hitting the goal, the less you will succeed in the one and the further the other will recede. What stands in your way is that you have a much too willful will. You think that what you do not do yourself does not happen.

You have described only too well," replied the Master, "where the difficulty lies...The right shot at the right moment does not come because you do not let go of yourself. You...brace yourself for failure. So long as that is so, you have no choice but to call forth something yourself that ought to happen independently of you, and so long as you call it forth your hand will not open in the right way--like the hand of a child.

Umasi kept walking, out of sight and into the glittering night. Meahwhile, Zen lay alone, defeated on the cold ground, knowing that he had truly been left behind. Then the memories returned, and for the first time in his life, he cried.

What is Zen? Zen means doing anything perfectly, making mistakes perfectly, being defeated perfectly, hesitating perfectly, doing anything perfectly or imperfectly, perfectly. What is the meaning of this perfectly? How does it differ from perfectly? Perfectly is in the will; perfectly is in the activity. Perfectly means that at each moment of the activity there is no egoism in it… our pain is not only our own pain; it is the pain of the universe. The joy of the universe is also our joy. Our failure and misjudgment is that of nature, which never hopes or despairs, but keeps on trying. R. H. Blyth

Sing before the spirits and dance with the earth deitiesAnd you will be able to compose your own tune.Then you and I, united, will clap hands joyously,Singing 'tum-tiddly-um tum-tiddly-um-tum.

Hongzhi Zhengjue

Can we cut the Zen crap for a moment?" I ask. "I'm trying to beat this bag to a pulp.

Thus we see that the all important thing is not killing or giving life, drinking or not drinking, living in the town or the country, being unlucky or lucky, winning or losing. It is how we win, how we lose, how we live or die, finally, how we choose.

Think of the jazz improv artist responding to the musical banter among her fellow players onstage. Aside from whatever training they've done in advance, as soon as the curtain opens, they move into unknown territory together, creating something new each time by remaining in a state of undivided presence.

This, then, is what counts: a lightning reaction which has no further need of conscious observation. In this respect at least the pupil makes himself independent of all conscious purpose.

These are some of the characteristics of the state of mind which the creation and appreciation of haiku demand: Selflessness, Loneliness, Grateful Acceptance, Wordlessness, Non-intellectuality, Contradictoriness, Humor, Freedom, Non-morality, Simplicity, Materiality, Love, and Courage.

A walk with a two-year-old is very Zen; it is not about the end but the journey. He needs to pet the dog someone is walking; to roll down the slight incline to the church basement, and then roll again, and again, and again; to remind me of the place where the wasps (he calls them bees) live, then zoom past it.

For us life is a fact, no less, and, above all, no more.

The present is always the best, even when its rough.

To enter the Buddha Way is to stop discriminating between good and evil and to cast aside the mind that says this is good and that is bad.

Dōgen

See for yourself whether letting go when a part of you really wants to hold on doesn't bring a deeper satisfaction than clinging.

Every man possesses the Buddha-nature. Do not demean yourselves.

Dōgen

With passions stilled and one's nature firm, all destinies are in harmony; When the full moon of contemplation is reached you will be pure.

Even though you read much Zen literature, you must read each sentence with a fresh mind. You should not say, “I know what Zen is,” or “I have attained enlightenment.” This is also the real secret of the arts: always be a beginner.”-“When you are sitting in the middle of your own problem, which is more real to you: your problem or you yourself? The awareness that you are here, right now, is the ultimate fact. ”-“Knowing that your life is short, to enjoy it day after day, moment after moment, is the life of “form is form and emptiness is emptiness.”-“You may feel as if you are doing something special, but actually it is only the expression of your true nature; it is the activity which appeases your inmost desire. But as long as you think you are practicing zazen for the sake of something, that is not true practice.”-“The most important thing is to forget all gaining ideas, all dualistic ideas. In other words, just practice zazen in a certain posture.

When the cart doesn't move, do you goad the cart or the ox?

Nanyue Huairang

No bow can be strung indefinitely, for it will surely break

Nicholas C. Rossis

The essence of your mind is not born, so it will never die. It is not an existence, which is perishable. It is not an emptiness, which is a mere void. It has neither colour nor form. It enjoys no pleasures and suffers no pains.I know you are very ill. Like a good Zen student, you are facing that sickness squarely. You may not know exactly who is suffering, but question yourself: What is the essence of this mind? Think only of this. You will need no more. Covet nothing. Your end which is endless is as a snowflake dissolving in pure air.

if only people stopped acting like they've been asked to donate a lung every time somebody asks for something the world would be a better place

The cats were relaxing in a patch of sunlight on the rug without a thought in their sleek brown heads. What matter to them that it was Sunday-or even Thursday? Every day was Today in their scheme of things, and there was no such thing as Yesterday or Tomorrow.

Lilian Jackson Braun

Amazing how the most obvious things escape your notice. Maybe the truth is exactly the things you don't notice. Maybe the aim to see and tell the truth is inherently futile, a contradiction in terms, and it's exactly those things about oneself and the world that are invisible because they are woven into one's fabric that are the truth. Just like a person can't see his own eyes. You search and search and search, and the truth, by definition, is exactly that which you don't find. You don't see the truth, you are the truth. "Habits of attention are reflexes of the complete character of an individual." And how could you notice your own habits of attention? By writing. Well, at their most profound level? It doesn't make any difference. That is the point. It's like Zen. The truth is not straining for the truth, the truth is in effortlessness. The truth is in being, not trying. Aw hell, that doesn't leave much too chew on.

I am everything. I am nothing. I am powerful. I am forgotten.

Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire. The reality of your own nature should determine the speed. If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion.

Robert M. Pirsig

You want to know my name? --a hill, a tree. An empty drifting boat.

Hsu Hsuan

Some people live as though they are already dead. There are people moving around us who are consumed by their past, terrified of their future, and stuck in their anger and jealousy. They are not alive; they are just walking corpses.

Thich Nhat Hanh

You’ve got to live right, too. It’s the way you live that predisposes you to avoid the traps and see the right facts. You want to know how to paint a perfect painting? It’s easy. Make yourself perfect and then just paint naturally. That’s the way all the experts do it. The making of a painting or the fixing of a motorcycle isn’t separate from the rest of your existence. If you’re a sloppy thinker the six days of the week you aren’t working on your machine, what trap avoidance, what gimmicks, can make you all of a sudden sharp on the seventh? It all goes together ... The real cycle you're working in is a cycle called yourself. The machine that appears to be "out there" and the person that appears to be "in here" are not two separate things. They grow toward Qaulity or fall away from Qaulity together.

Robert M. Pirsig

Don't think of what you have to do, don't consider how to carry it out!" he exclaimed. "The shot will only go smoothly when it takes the archer himself by surprise.

Each situation is a blossom to be picked with a curious spirit.

During this journey it was as if he again thought over his whole life and reached the same old comforting and hopeless conclusion: that there was no need for him to start anything, that he had to live out his life without doing evil, without anxiety, and without wishing for anything.

To practice with an end in view is to have one eye on the practice and the other on the end, which is lack of concentration, lack of sincerity.

The brush must draw by itself. This cannot happen if one does not practice constantly. But neither can it happen if one makes an effort.

Today most scientists would agree with the ancient Hindus that nothing exists or is destroyed, things merely change shape or form…the cosmic radiation that is thought to come from the explosion of creation strikes the earth with equal intensity from all directions, which suggests either that the earth is at the center of the universe, as in our innocence we once supposed, or that the known universe has no center.

Peter Matthiessen

...it should be remembered that men always prize that most which is least enjoyed.

James Fenimore Cooper

If you are surrounded by people who not only don't believe in your goals and your positive outlook on life, but who also continually try to tear you down, it will be extremely challenging for you to hold firmly in mind that you will succeed and that you can be happy.

What determines each person's state of happiness or unhappiness is not the event itself, but what the event means to that person.

If the feet of enlightenment moved, the great ocean would overflow; If that head bowed, it would look down upon the heavens.Such a body has no place to rest. . . .Let another continue this poem.

Paul Reps

The true source of happiness is within each of us.

The answers are never "out there." All the answers are "in there," inside you, waiting to be discovered.

Every belief that you hold manifests itself in some manner by either causing you to take some form of action or by preventing you from taking action. If you don't believe something is possible, you won't even attempt it.

Stress comes from the way you relate to events or situations.

Your actions create an "energy vortex" that draws in the necessary ingredients for your venture.

A strong personal philosophy does more than sustain us through the tragedies of life. It also stains us daily in everything we think and do. It gives us optimism and hope.

The most dangerous thing about an academic education is that it enables my tendency to over-intellectualize stuff, to get lost in abstract thinking instead of simply paying attention to what’s going on in front of me.

David Foster Wallace

We will be entering the beautiful world of a Zen master's no-mind. Sosan is the third Zen Patriarch. Nothing much is known about him- this is as it should be, because history records only violence. History does not record silence- it cannot record it. All records are of disturbance. Whenever someone becomes really silent, he disappears from all records, he is no more a part of our madness. So it is as it should be.Ch. 1: The Great Way Is Not Difficult

Osho

May we exist like a lotus, / At home in the muddy water. / Thus we bow to life as it is.

Zen

What is a course of history, or philosophy, or poetry, no matter how well selected, or the best society, or the most admirable routine of life, compared with the discipline of looking always at what is to be seen?

Henry David Thoreau

The object of our lives is to look at, listen to, touch, taste things. Without them—these sticks, stones, feathers, shells—there is no Deity.

For some reason when I type the word "love" in my iPad it keeps autocorrecting to "live". I find it oddly profound. My ipad IS. My iPad is ZEN: “Only the iPad that autocorrects can write the true thing.

Annastacia Dickerson

Soldiers falling fastBattle of white and scarletBlossoms on the ground

[I]t would seem that to be incapable of sitting and watching with the mind completely at rest is to be incapable of experiencing the world in which we live to the full. For one does not know the world simply in thinking about it and doing about it. One must first experience it more directly, and prolong the experience without jumping to conclusions.

It has been said that if you have Zen in your life,you have no fear, no doubt, no unnecessary craving, no extreme emotions. Neither illiberal attitudes nor egotistical actions trouble you. You serve humanity humbly, fulfilling your presence in this world with loving-kindness and observing your passing as a petal falling from a flower. Serene, you enjoy life in blissful tranquility. Such is the spirit of Zen.---Zen flesh, Zen bones.

Paul

[I]t is typical of Zen that its style of action has the strongest feeling of commitment, of "follow-through." It enters into everything wholeheartedly and freely without having to keep an eye on itself. It does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.

I hope that I am making myself understood. The Golden Temple once more appeared before me. Or rather, I should say that the breast was transformed into the Golden Temple.

It is both dangerous and absurd for our world to be a group of communions mutually excommunicate.

Zen is nothing to get excited about.

One master defines Zen as the art of feeling the polar star in the southern sky. Truth can be reached only through the comprehension of opposites.

Kakuzō Okakura

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