Top 100 Quotes About Zen
#1. One has to reach to the absolute state of awareness: that is Zen. You cannot do it every morning for a few minutes or for half an hour and then forget all about it. It has to become like your heartbeat. You have to sit in it, you have to walk in it. Yes, you have even to sleep in it.
Rajneesh
#2. Sam Keen points out that Zen masters spend years to reach an enlightenment that every natural child already knows - the total incarnation of sleeping when you're tired and eating when you're hungry. What irony that this state of Zen-like bliss is programmatically and systematically destroyed.
John Bradshaw
#3. Every homeowner deserves a Zen-like area to revitalize, rejuvenate and read.
Geralin Thomas
#5. I never thought much about God, certainly never wondered whether God was thinking about me, until I fell in love with a Zen Buddhist priest.
Stacey D'Erasmo
#6. Most assuredly Zen is a religion, but it is a religion without scripture, without doctrine or dogma and without sin.
Howard Fast
#7. Zen is the way of splitting the self again and again, untilt there is nothing left.
Frederick Lenz
#8. Zen is a totally different kind of religion. It brings humanness to religion. It is not bothered about anything superhuman; its whole concern is how to make ordinary life a blessing.
Rajneesh
#9. I stole this from Zen Master Suzuki Roshi: If it's not paradoxical it's not true!
C.B. Murphy
#10. Perhaps there is after all nothing mysterious in Zen. Everything is open to your full view. If you eat your food and keep yourself cleanly dressed and work on the farm to raise your rice or vegetables, you are doing all that is required of you on this earth, and the infinite is realized in you.
D.T. Suzuki
#11. What is Zen? Zen is looking at things with the eye of God, that is, becoming the thing's eyes so that it looks at itself with our eyes.
Reginald Horace Blyth
#12. Zen students see themselves as athletes. Their competitive sport is enlightenment; only with enlightenment do we compete.
Frederick Lenz
#13. Zen is very easy! It's like touching your nose when you wash your face in the morning!
Seungsahn
#14. Can we cut the Zen crap for a moment?" I ask. "I'm trying to beat this bag to a pulp.
Mari Mancusi
#15. To an experienced Zen Buddhist, asking if one believes in Zen or one believes in the Buddha, sounds a little ludicrous, like asking if one believes in air or water. Similarly Quality is not something you believe in, Quality is something you experience.
Robert M. Pirsig
#16. To practice Zen means to realize one's existence in the beauty and clarity of this present moment, rather than letting life unravel in useless daydreaming of the past and future.
John Daishin Buksbazen
#17. Sayings and Doings of Ta-zan') is one of the best Zen books. [FN#142]
Kaiten Nukariya
#18. Zen Master Dogen has pointed out that anxiety, when accepted, is the driving force to enlightenment in that it lays bare the human dilemma at the same time that it ignites our desire to break out of it.
Philip Kapleau
#19. This is the Zen approach: nothing is there to be done. There is nothing to do. One has just to be. Have a rest and be ordinary and be natural.
Rajneesh
#20. I've been in these tabloids for 14 years now, and at some point you just become a Zen master of it all
Brad Pitt
#21. Each of the small enlightenments that a Zen practitioner has, which are known in Zen as "Satori experiences," provides deeper insights into the nature of existence and helps a person prepare for complete enlightenment.
Frederick Lenz
#22. In Zen we study the will. We learn how to cultivate it, to accumulate will. We use it to direct our actions, and we don't overuse it or abuse it - that's a waste.
Frederick Lenz
#23. This is the monkey mind of which Zen speaks: the mind that worries, doubts, frets about the past, makes lists, all the time chattering like a monkey.
Patricia Monaghan
#24. In Tantric Zen there is no rule. There is only your immediate experience.
Frederick Lenz
#25. I'm not a dogmatic Christian and I don't believe in the Bible literally, but I realized that Jesus is basically a very Zen dude.
Weyes Blood
#26. Zen is consciousness unstructured by particular form or particular system, a trans-cultural, trans-religious, transformed consciousness.
Thomas Merton
#27. I thought with all this freedom and self-discovery and expression of our love stuff that we could finally stop with the whole Zen master wisdom and practical advice crap.
Richelle Mead
#28. When a garden is used as a place to pause for thought, that is when a Zen garden comes to life. When you contemplate a garden like this it will form as lasting impression on your heart.
Muso Soseki
#30. Now when I speak about Zen, I have a problem, in the sense that the Zen of today has lost the essence, in my estimation, of what I call "old Zen."
Frederick Lenz
#31. Little absent from everything in the way of a Zen Master actually who realizes that everything is indifferent anyway,
Jack Kerouac
#32. Zen insight is not our awareness, but Being's awareness of itself in us.
Thomas Merton
#33. In Zen Buddhism an action is considered good when it brings happiness and well-being to oneself and others, evil when it brings suffering and harm to oneself and others.
Thich Thien-An
#34. Bodhidharma who brought Zen from India to the Orient, taught a very pure Zen - in that it was pure Zen. He wanted to show that the way still existed and wanted to get back to its essence.
Frederick Lenz
#35. In Old Zen, the Zen Master would do literally anything to break down the concept of what the study was. He would present conflicting codes all the time, just to shake this fixation people had on how to attain liberation.
Frederick Lenz
#36. There is no letter of the law to follow in Zen. There is a lot of etiquette, but there are no rules.
Frederick Lenz
#38. 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
#39. You can do anything you like - really - but this [Sci-Fi] is absolutely disciplined, it's Zen, you have to be absolutely focused in an area. You have to zone into an area and you then you can achieve when you get there. It's really weird!
Danny Boyle
#40. To be a good Zen Buddhist it is not enough to follow the teaching of its founder; we have to experience the Buddha's experience.
D.T. Suzuki
#41. Different schools of Zen have evolved, principally the Rinzai and Soto orders. A whole hierarchy has developed for the teaching and practice of Zen. Zen has become, to a certain degree, institutionalized.
Frederick Lenz
#42. These are new worlds, Zen. We don't have to be what we were any more. We can be anything that we want. We can be humans together. - Nova
Philip Reeve
#43. Zen Hugs - the hugs that you would get, if we were there, if we could hug you, but we aren't, and we can't.
Mercedes Lackey
#44. My life itself couldn't very conceivably be less Zenful than it is, and what little I've been able to apprehend - I pick that verb with care - of the Zen experience has been a by-result of following my own rather natural path of extreme Zenlessness.
J.D. Salinger
#45. In the classic Zen in the Art of Archery, Eugen Herrigel's teacher urged him always to take his next shot unburdened by previous failures to hit the target; as he improved, his teacher urged him not to be influenced by his successes either, to stay in the present moment.
Alex Soojung-Kim Pang
#46. But for the first time, I had a religious identity. I had come home. And so I called myself a Zen Buddhist at the age of 18.
M. Scott Peck
#47. Life, according to Zen, ought to be lived as a bird flies through the air, or as a fish swims in the water.
D.T. Suzuki
#48. Near Tokyo lived a great Samurai warrior, now old, who decided to teach Zen Buddhism to young people. In spite of his age, the legend was that he could defeat any adversary.
Paulo Coelho
#49. Zen is a very quick path to enlightenment and development of the mind and all its facilities.
Frederick Lenz
#50. There are things that I value now that I didn't when I first went over there, like Zen Buddhism, which has become part of my life over the last couple years.
Matthew Sweet
#51. The path of Tao is not that of sudden enlightenment. It is not like Zen. Zen is sudden enlightenment, Tao is gradual growth.
Osho
#52. Meryl Streep is expert at only using the requisite amount of energy to express her character, not an ounce too little or too much. She's Zen and doesn't know she's Zen. That's very Zen!
Frederick Lenz
#53. The drive to Santa Fe on I-25 is midly zen. There are public road signs that say "Gusty Winds May Exist". This seems more like lazy philosophy than travel advice.
Chuck Klosterman
#54. A Zen master, when asked where he would go after he died, replied, 'To Hell, for that's where help is needed most.'
Philip Kapleau
#55. I started running ultras to become a better person. I thought if you could run 100 miles you'd be in this Zen state. You'd be the Buddha, bringing peace and a smile to the world. It didn't work in my case. I'm the same old punk-ass as before, but there's always hope.
Jenn Shelton
#56. Zen culture invites us to experience reality without the intervening distractions of intellect, categories, analysis.
Tom Hoover
#57. ALRIGHT then, be a Zen monk. But you wait and see. You'll be happy and bright. You'll laugh. People will envy and ridicule you. You won't care. (sigh)
Lew Welch
#58. If the Zen master sees that it will cause a person to progress, he will ask that person to do a task. The task is charged with power if it's performed properly. It's a koan between yourself and the Zen Master.
Frederick Lenz
#59. Zen was an attempt to get back to the purest teachings of the Buddha -enlightenment without strings.
Frederick Lenz
#60. In Zen, actions speak louder than words. Doing is more important than knowing, and knowledge which cannot be translated into action is of little worth.
Thich Thien-An
#61. Zen masters say you cannot see your reflection in running water, only in still water.
Elizabeth Gilbert
#62. I think that that's why artists make art - it is difficult to put into words unless you are a poet. What it takes is being open to the flow of universal creativity. The Zen artists knew this.
Alex Grey
#63. Have the right attitude in advanced practice. Feel that you are always a beginner in Zen. They refer to it as "beginners mind". I feel I am a beginner, always; because it's true.
Frederick Lenz
#65. Zen is not about eliminating thoughts but illuminating them.
Gerald May
#66. Dr. Parent has been a great influence on my mental game. ZEN GOLF is the best book at connecting golf and the mind together. It's for everyone, it really helps, and you're really going to enjoy it.
Vijay Singh
#67. When you've done the technical part, you're then into the joy, the zen, into being. Technology no longer exists for you. You're then into the mystery of the thing you're doing.
William Shatner
#68. Zen is a double-edged sword, killing words and thoughts, yet at the same time, giving them life. Although beyond human intellect and philosophy, Zen is their root and source.
Masao Abe
#69. It's a horrible and wonderful battle with yourself, to stay calm, stay in the moment. My coach said, "Stay here, not at the target. Don't be down there." It's why they call it the Zen art.
Geena Davis
#70. It's been said that golf is a Zen activity. I'd argue that if golfers were practicing Zen, they wouldn't keep score.
Tom Robbins
#71. The more you look, the more you see. - Pirsig, Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Pirsig
#72. Canning is a whole world of a thing to do. It requires that you get out of your head. It's a Zen thing. You cannot be wondering about your inadequacies and how they drove Bob off and be making jelly. You'll wind up with big, cylindrical jujubes.
Debby Bull
#73. The true purpose [of Zen] is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes ... Zen practice is to open up our small mind.
Shunryu Suzuki
#74. Commander, I always used to consider that you had a definite anti-authoritarian streak in you."
"Sir?"
"It seems that you have managed to retain this even though you are authority."
"Sir?"
"That's practically zen.
Terry Pratchett
#75. Tantric Zen is the original Zen, Zen without rules, Zen without form. Zen can certainly take rules and form. So Tantric Zen might have some rules and form, but it would remain formless even though it had rules and form.
Frederick Lenz
#76. In Zen Buddhism it is said that "if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him". Which means that if by walking on the spiritual path you encounter the rigid ideas and fixed laws of institutionalised Buddhism , you must free yourself from them too.
Yuval Noah Harari
#77. Zen is a kind of unlearning. It teaches you how to drop that which you have learned, how to become unskillful again, how to become a child again, how to start existing without mind again, how to be here without any mind.
Rajneesh
#78. Zen aims at freedom but its practice is disciplined.
Gary Snyder
#79. And the question of Wester religion," Flattery said, "is: What lies beyond death? But the question of the Zen master is: What lies beyond waking?
Frank Herbert
#80. The renowned seventh-century Zen master Seng-tsan taught that true freedom is being without anxiety about imperfection.
Tara Brach
#81. According to Zen Buddhist cosmology there are ten thousand different states of mind to view and understand life through.
Frederick Lenz
#82. Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh is one of the most beloved Buddhist teachers in the West, a rare combination of mystic, poet, scholar, and activist. His luminous presence and the simple, compassionate clarity of his writings have touched countless lives.
Joanna Macy
#83. The Zen Master was constantly attempting to break up concepts that people had about what it was like to be a spiritual teacher. We have a traditional image. Each Zen master was a complete character.
Frederick Lenz
#84. Think of Zen as the bow and Zazen as the arrow. The bow is the guiding theory behind the practice, while Zazen is the arrow which puts that practice into action. The better you understand the bow and the better you control the arrow, the better you'll be at hitting your target.
Bino Schree
#85. I used to try to hypnotize myself into a Zen-like state of resignation at the outset. It doesn't work, not for this grasshopper. I have my own process, as they say. I call it the motherfucker process.
Matthew B. Crawford
#86. The aim of Zen training is to attain the state of consciousness which occurs when the individual ego is emptied of itself and becomes identified with the infinite reality of all things.
Anne Bancroft
#87. How hard, then, and yet how easy it is to understand Zen! Hard because to understand it is not to understand it; easy because not to understand it is to understand it.
D.T. Suzuki
#88. Zen says: be empty. Look without any idea. Look into the nature of things but with no idea, with no prejudice, with no presupposition.
Rajneesh
#89. The real Zen of the old Chinese masters was wu-shih, or "no fuss."
Alan Watts
#91. A thief running away like mad from a ferocious watch-dog may be a splendid example of Zen.
Reginald Horace Blyth
#92. I recommend, for many people, the study of computer science. Our natural resource in America is the mind. The mindset in computer science is very similar to the mindset in Zen.
Frederick Lenz
#93. Personal experience, therefore, is everything in Zen. No ideas are intelligible to those who have no backing of experience.
D.T. Suzuki
#94. What is Tantric Zen? Well, I don't think I can give you a straight answer, since I don't happen to be a very straight Zen master.
Frederick Lenz
#95. He was, in his way, as close to a Zen master as I've ever had, and all of us who fell under his influence began with his style and eventually ended up with our own.
Nora Ephron
#96. I'm a Zen Master. I'm an occult teacher. I teach people how to become that, how to be perfect.
Frederick Lenz
#97. One thing I like about Zen. It doesn't believe in achievement.
Agnes Martin
#98. People who practice Zen correctly are not spaced-out or unrealistic. They are balanced and grounded.
Frederick Lenz
#99. We enter a discipline like Zen practice so that we can learn to live in a sane way.
Charlotte Joko Beck
#100. I work out because that's my job, but what I enjoy about it, beyond the vanity, is the Zen of it. I like getting out of my head, and one great way to do that is to sweat your face off. And to know that, if you're thinking of anything else, you're not working intensely enough.
Chris Pine
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