Top 31 Roshi Quotes
#1. A Zen student asked his roshi the most important element of Zen.The roshi replied, "Attention." "Yes, thank you," the student replied. "But can you tell me the second most important element?"And the roshi replied, "Attention."
Dan Millman
#2. In the mind of the beginner, all things are possible, But in the mind of the expert, only a few. Zen Master Suzuki-Roshi
Barbara L. Jordan
#3. The ultimate purpose of Zen,' I remembered the roshi telling me, 'is not in the going away from the world but in the coming back. Zen is not just a matter of gaining enlightenment; it's a matter of acting in a world of love and compassion.
Pico Iyer
#4. A student, filled with emotion and crying, implored, "Why is there so much suffering?"
Suzuki Roshi replied, "No reason.
Shunryu Suzuki
#5. I stole this from Zen Master Suzuki Roshi: If it's not paradoxical it's not true!
C.B. Murphy
#6. Maybe it's something which can't be defined," Enso Roshi says. "Maybe it's a question, to be lived.
T. Scott McLeod
#7. In his talk, Suzuki Roshi says that meditation and the whole process of finding your own true nature is one continuous mistake, and that rather than that being a reason for depression or discouragement, it's actually the motivation.
Pema Chodron
#8. At times, Zen does get into some Buddhist Cosmology. Nishijima Roshi, my main teacher would talk about that and almost every time immediately say that it was only one way of looking at it. Whenever addressing realms of Heaven or Hell, he'd also address that it was just a psychological state.
Brad Warner
#9. It is the rub that polishes the jewel," Enso Roshi says. "Nobody ever gets to nirvana without going through samsara. Nobody ever gets to heaven, without going through hell. The center of all things, the truth, is surrounded by demons.
T. Scott McLeod
#10. Katagiri Roshi says: "Poor artists. They suffer very much. They finish a masterpiece and they are not satisfied. They want to go on and do another." Yes, but it's better to go on and do another if you have the urge than to start drinking and become alcoholic or eat a pound of good fudge and get fat.
Natalie Goldberg
#11. If it is going to kill you," Enso Roshi says, "then let it kill you.
T. Scott McLeod
#12. Life is like stepping into a boat that is about to sail out to sea and sink. - SHUNRYU SUZUKI ROSHI A
Pema Chodron
#13. The fundamental delusion of humanity is to suppose that I am here and you are out there. -Yasutani Roshi, Zen master (1885-1973)
Yasutani Roshi
#14. We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles.
Jimmy Carter
#15. You know you're old when the president is younger than you.
Steve Kangas
#16. The entire world is understood as a living interrelated and interactive system. Thus, if a tree outside of the zendo is damaged, I am also damaged. Just so, if I am damaged, so too, the Universe.
Harvey Daiho Hilbert-roshi
#17. He would lose every game. And he still insisted on playing. I wondered at the futility of it. If it is the definition of insanity to repeat the same process and expect a different outcome, most of humanity must be insane.
Amie Kaufman
#18. Successful people are just as "lucky" as the unsuccessful. The difference is they do something remarkable with their lucky moment while the rest of the world sits around, waiting for the next lucky streak to come.
Jeff Goins
#19. When all the teachers are gone, who will be your teacher?
The student replied: "Everything!
Kobun, paused, then said: "No, you".
Kobun Chino Otogawa Roshi
#20. There is no being capable of a spiritual life who does not have within him a jungle. Where the wolf constantly HOWLS and the OBSCENE bird of night chatters endlessly.
William James
#21. A Zendo is not a peaceful haven
but a furnace room for the combustion
of our egotistical delusions.
Eido Shimano Roshi
#22. No fury more righteous than that of a sinner accused of the wrong sin.
Don Paterson
#23. We must laugh and philosophize and manage our households and look after our other affairs all at the same time, and never stop proclaiming the words of the true philosophy.
Epicurus
#24. Those that have an attitude of service towards others are the beauty of society.
Mata Amritanandamayi
#25. Don't be afraid anymore. Not of anyone. Not of anything. Nothing. Ever again. Listen to me: not ever again.
Marguerite Duras
#26. The more you sense the rareness and value of your own life, the more you realize that how you use it, how you manifest it, is all your responsibility. We face such a big task, so naturally we sit down for a while.
Kobun Chino Otogawa Roshi
#27. The separation of sex from emotion is at the very foundations of Western culture and civilization.
Shulamith Firestone
#28. God took his chosen people and we are what's left. He looked at what's left and thought: I could kill you all, but let's see what happens. A little social experiment.
Moby
#30. Fortune helps the intrepid and abandons the cowards. I am the daughter of a man who did not know of fear. Whatever may come, I am resolved to follow that course until death.
Caterina Sforza
#31. Enlightenment does not mean that your ego is suppressed or denied. It does mean that it is deconstructed, seen through, exposed, and then reeducated and reconstructed.
Jun Po Roshi
