Japan Zen Quotes

#1. Down there the nights are bright and nobody believes in the Devil.

Cornelia Funke

#2. When I go visit my brother monks in Japan and sit down with other Zen Masters, they look at my crazy clothes and my strange expression, but they feel the power that emanates from my dedication to the practice. So they are comfortable with me, yet they're very uncomfortable.

Frederick Lenz

#3. We really enjoy entertaining our children with characters. We'll act out all of The Wizard of Oz together.

Robin Wright

#4. The Japanese have become so smitten with the Western condiment - its texture as silky as a kimono, its tang as understated as the tang of Zen - that today they have a word for mayonnaise junkie: mayora.

Tom Robbins

#5. Shigemori's body of work is a compelling manifesto for continuous cultural renewal.

Christian Tschumi

#6. How much does he lack himself who must have many things?

Sen No Rikyu

#7. I've been studying the cultures of Asia for many years, and I'm very attracted to the culture of Japan, in particular to the impact Zen has had on the Japanese mind and spirit.

John McLaughlin

#8. There are monasteries in Japan where they teach Zen with rules, more rules than you can imagine, and you might feel comfortable with that. I don't teach that type of Zen.

Frederick Lenz

#9. It is only in the last 800 years that the rules have come into being and conservative Zen has surfaced. It is not particularly popular in Japan at all. Hardly anybody practices Zen any more because it's just too strict; there are too many rules.

Frederick Lenz

#10. A child's permanent personality is substantially formed by age six.

David Baldacci

#11. In the 1950s in the United States, few music lovers were listening to chamber music. Daddy played Bach and Haydn on our phonograph for me. Not only did I become familiar with the form; he discussed the concerti. My own head start. My own Head Start.

Karen DeCrow

#12. What sets Tibetan Buddhism apart from other Buddhist traditions - such as the Zen Buddhism of Japan or the Theravada tradition in Sri Lanka - is that while Tibetans aim to become enlightened, they don't want to enter Nirvana.

Scott Carney

#13. Too lazy to be ambitious,
I let the world take care of itself.
Ten days' worth of rice in my bag;
a bundle of twigs by the fireplace.
Why chatter about delusion and enlightenment?
Listening to the night rain on my roof,
I sit comfortably, with both legs stretched out.

Ryokan

#14. Don't sit back and be a bystander of your own life

Caprice Crane