Top 100 Zen Life Quotes
#1. I steeled myself for the next response. I knew it was going to be one of the Zen life lessons. [ ... ]
Instead he kissed me.
Richelle Mead
#2. No ideals. No illusions. Just reality - but more perfect than you've ever imagined. That's what being mindful and living in the present means.
Lidiya K.
#3. The truth of Zen, just a little bit of it, is what turns one's humdrum life, a life of monotonous, uninspiring commonplaceness, into one of art, full of genuine inner creativity.
D.T. Suzuki
#4. [I]mpermanence [is] the very thing that makes [life] vibrant, wonderful, and alive.
Steve Hagen
#5. May we exist like a lotus, / At home in the muddy water. / Thus we bow to life as it is.
Zen
#6. I feel I'm pretty zen and laid back. I don't have a lot of rage in my real life.
Stark Sands
#7. We take life for granted, sleepwalking until a shattering event knocks us awake. Zen says, don't wait until the car accident, the cancer diagnosis, or the death of a loved one to get your priorities straight. Do it now.
Philip Toshio Sudo
#8. My blogging life is basically goalless. I like the zen nature of that, and paradoxically, it improves results.
Seth Godin
#9. Life is more or less a lie, but then again, that's exactly the way we want it to be.
Bob Dylan
#10. 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.
Leo Tolstoy
#11. According to Zen Buddhist cosmology there are ten thousand different states of mind to view and understand life through.
Frederick Lenz
#12. When nothing else worked, we created a holistic, hand-tailored program that saved Pax's life. At Passages, he and I use what we learned in curing him to help other discover the roots of their addiction or alcoholism and break free.
Chris Prentiss
#13. People get stuck a lot because they're afraid to act; in the worst case, ... we get so attached to some end result that we can't function. We need help just to move on, only life doesn't wait.
Bernie Glassman
#14. The central benefit of Zen, in the context of ordinary ups and downs of life,is not in preventing the minus and promoting the plus,but in directing people to the fundamental reality that is not under the sway of ups and downs.
Muso Soseki
#16. Zen has no secrets other than seriously thinking about life and death.
Takeda Shingen
#17. To have some deep feeling about Buddhism is not the point; we just do what we should do, like eating supper and going to bed. This is Buddhism.
Shunryu Suzuki
#18. Your body is like a dew-drop on the morning grass, your life is as brief as a flash of lightning. Momentary and vain, it is lost in a moment. (From 'Fukan zazengi')
Dogen
#19. People aren't against you; they are just for themselves, don't take it personal.
Diane
#20. Wild woman are an unexplainable spark of life. They ooze freedom and seek awareness, they belong to nobody but themselves yet give a piece of who they are to everyone they meet.
If you have met one, hold on to her, she'll allow you into her chaos but she'll also show you her magic.
Nikki Rowe
#21. The way of Zen is to become independent and strong. Don't rely on others for perceptions of life and truth. Do it individually. Go to a teacher of Zen to learn how to do that, not to get answers for individual life situations.
Frederick Lenz
#22. Your actions create an "energy vortex" that draws in the necessary ingredients for your venture.
Chris Prentiss
#23. Haiku is not a shriek, a howl, a sigh, or a yawn; rather, it is the deep breath of life.
Santoka Taneda
#24. Question everything, even the question mark, that shepherd's crook floating in the air above that small round rock
If you - stubbornly - still wish to be unhappy,
maybe you can grasp it.
Dick Allen
#25. There is competition in Zen. Let's not be ridiculous. There is competition in everything in life; being a winner in Zen means, competing and winning in the world of enlightenment.
Frederick Lenz
#26. Hand over your responses to the man who triggers them, and you have already lost the battle for self. Look beyond, and find yourself there instead.
Richard K. Morgan
#27. Learning to let go should be learned before learning to get. Life should be touched, not strangled. You've got to relax, let it happen at times, and at others move forward with it.
Ray Bradbury
#28. I have developed a Zen-like approach to the operating systems that people use: 'When you're ready, the right operating system will appear in your life.'
Guy Kawasaki
#29. We can see unmistakeably that there is an inner relationship between Zen and the warrior's life.
D.T. Suzuki
#30. [Y]ou are here to learn something. Don't try to figure out what it is. This can be frustrating and unproductive.
Steven L. Peck
#31. There had to be something wrong with my life. I should have been born a Yugoslavian shepherd who looked up at the Big Dipper every night.
Haruki Murakami
#32. 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
#33. Being the people we are, and feeling the way that we do, getting excited about going somewhere new can be terrifying. Of course it is, I get it! But if you don't travel, you'll regret it. Your soul will forever be empty.
S.R. Crawford
#34. Mindfulness helps you understand that the past is gone, can't be changed and all the lessons are already learned.
Lidiya K.
#35. Life is full of highs and lows. We need them both to grow to our fullest potential. Just hang on tight & enjoy the ride.
Dawn Gluskin
#36. 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
#37. Mindfulness is attainable when one can embrace life, not its circumstances.
Michelle Cruz-Rosado
#38. There's a void inside most people.
It's been created by not being contented with who we are, not being happy with what we have, not being present and looking for something more, better, more exciting out there.
And we've always been trying to fill this void with something external.
Lidiya K.
#40. X and Y
the Co-ordinates of
Zen Navigation
X = the limited time you have on the road, in a life
Y = the eternity you have in every hour, every day
Z = Each step you take is a once-in-a-lifetime infinite thing
Vivian Swift
#41. 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
#42. The most expected thing you can expect is what's unexpected.
Dick Allen
#43. Apples to oranges, the act of comparing your life to another's is more like comparing an elephant to an apple, it makes no sense to compare someone's life that you have no knowledge about to that of your own, of which in all earnest is not something that you completely understand yourself.
Forrest Curran
#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. 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
#46. Have you ever thought; whilst looking all this time for the magic in the world, it's been inside you all along? No matter how far you travel, how wide you spread your wings and learn to fly if you have no idea what treasures hide within you you'll be searching your entire life.
Nikki Rowe
#47. 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
#48. Maybe it's something which can't be defined," Enso Roshi says. "Maybe it's a question, to be lived.
T. Scott McLeod
#49. Just dabbing pieces of my heart into things that make me shine, my little young simple life.
Nikki Rowe
#50. 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
#51. Zen is the way of complete self-realization; a living human being who follows the way of Zen can attain satori and then live a new life as a Buddha.
Zenkei Shibayama
#52. Shall you live authentically who you are or will you spend your allotted living the life of someone you imagine your self to be?
Earl R. Smith II
#53. A zen master's life is one continuous mistake.
Dogen
#54. Conservation is not a desperate, defensive effort. It is instead joyous and life-affirming. - from Zen Birding
Susan Guyette And David White
#55. Most people put the cart before the horse, which is an interesting way to go through life. They approach everything directly. In Zen we approach everything backwards or inside out.
Frederick Lenz
#56. With life the truth is not what is right or wrong, but with life the truth is the process, where life unfolds in every individual, and takes him to the whole.
Roshan Sharma
#57. So, without telling any of my Zen-snob buddies, I liked to pretend everything was the Pure Land, that my life was already perfect as it was.
Jaimal Yogis
#58. In life as well as in art Zen never wastes energy in stopping to explain; it only indicates.
Alan Watts
#60. In a certain sense, Zen is feeling life instead of feeling something about life.
Alan Watts
#61. Peace does not demand that everyone like or want the same reality.
Alaric Hutchinson
#62. Every hour of your life that ticks by, there are numerous points and moments when you can choose to pause - and be aware of your mental and physical state. At any given point, you can freeze the flow that is your life, and be fully conscious for a moment.
Kevin Michel
#63. Love was never meant to be contained solely in our hearts, just as life in a seed was always meant to break through into the world and become beauty to be shared.
Forrest Curran
#64. His priorities for a rich and contented life were friendship, freedom, the pleasures of an examined life, and enough food and shelter to keep body and soul together.
Roger Housden
#65. The zenith of the peak of mountains has to be balanced by the nadir of the depth of the seas.
Ackshat Deoli
#66. 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
#67. Old age and death are in the natural course of things. There is nothing a doctor can do about them.
Muso Soseki
#68. You listen to people, you listen so deeply that you can hear their past lives,
The crackle of their funeral pyres,
Dick Allen
#69. Zen is a path of liberation. It liberates you. It is freedom from the first step to the last. You are not required to follow any rules; you are required to find out your own rules and your own life in the light of awareness.
Osho
#70. Zen is meditation, the actual experience of life directly, immediately with no buffers.
Frederick Lenz
#71. Zen is discipline - the discipline of living life, the discipline of taking a breath, the discipline of not knowing and not trying to know.
Frederick Lenz
#72. Most writers agree on the fact that Zen is not to be understood but to be lived; and far from being incompatible with the requirements of everyday life, Zen confers on it its own full revealing value.
Robert Linssen
#73. Mastery of impulse is achieved through taking pauses during life's contrasting situations. Mastery of impulse is about developing strong willpower that can be used to redirect the flow of energy in any situation. Mastery of impulse is about responding to the world with a sense of reason and peace.
Alaric Hutchinson
#74. Happiness will be fleeting if you constantly search for it in places that can be taken away. It's an inside job.
Nikki Rowe
#75. For Zen students a weed is a treasure. With this attitude, whatever you do, life becomes an art.
Shunryu Suzuki
#76. Life and death are of supreme importance. Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost. Each of us should strive to awaken. Awaken! Take heed, do not squander your life.
Dogen
#77. Life was the gift that you were given the day you were born, and in turn you are the gift to life. Only in the moments of being alone in the darkness on the raft, will you have the space to speak, listen, and to act from the heart.
Forrest Curran
#79. Living Zen is nothing special: life as it is. Zen is life itself, nothing added.
Charlotte Joko Beck
#80. As I naturally go through a full range of emotions in my life, I mustn't feel ashamed for feeling lost, for it is honest and human to feel such.
Forrest Curran
#81. For us life is a fact, no less, and, above all, no more.
Julien Torma
#82. You are not your thoughts!! This simple yet powerful statement can greatly change the quality of your life.
Dawn Gluskin
#83. Once upon a time,
there was a Zen sign
at every small railway crossing in America
Stop. Look. And listen.
Dick Allen
#84. When I say that Zen is life, I mean that Zen is not to be confined within conceptualization, that Zen is what makes conceptualization possible.
D.T. Suzuki
#85. Mastering my mind one thought at a time.
Nikki Rowe
#86. And the Yak, they can afford to move so fucking slow, man, they'll wait years and years. Give you a whole life, just so you'll have more to lose when they come and take it away. Patient like a spider. Zen spiders.
William Gibson
#87. No such thing as time travel, he'd rumbled patiently, once. Only live with what you've done, and try in the future to do what you're happy to live with.
Richard K. Morgan
#88. 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.
Isamu Fukui
#89. [A] life passed amid the feuds and rivalries of a girls' school had left Prunella not wholly unprepared for battle.
Zen Cho
#90. If you want to discover the true meaning of Zen in your everyday life, you have to understand the meaning of keeping your mind on your breathing and your body in the right posture in zazen.
Shunryu Suzuki
#91. Every day, I take steps to resolve all my karmic ties, live with intention, smile and laugh often, express my love, and act on what brings me fulfillment. Why wait until we have one foot in the grave to suddenly become spiritual, forgiving, and at peace with the world?
Alaric Hutchinson
#93. A Zen master is someone whose life is one with enlightenment and self-discovery. They can never be separated from that. They've been essentially mastered by Zen.
Frederick Lenz
#94. What makes human life
which is inseparable from this moment
so precious is its fleeting nature. And not that it doesn't last but that it never returns again.
Steve Hagen
#95. It's important to have a vision of the long run and make wise decisions for our highest good in the present moment; however, we don't want to become attached to how everything must look. When we show up in good faith, life provides. And when we trust, we are always in the flow of manifestation.
Alaric Hutchinson
#96. Our reality is colored by our vibration and belief systems. In other words, the experiences we have in the world with other people are dictated by the energy we bring with us wherever we go.
Alaric Hutchinson
#97. Zen is just a lifestyle, your everyday life. It is doing your best at your job, relationships, health, hobbies, and other daily activities!
Mika.
#98. Regarding the creative: never assume you're the master, only the student. Your audience will determine if you're masterful.
Don Roff
#99. The truth of Zen is the truth of life, and life means to live, to move, to act, not merely to reflect.
D.T. Suzuki
#100. Zen is about breaking out of your ideas and experiencing life and not ideas.
Frederick Lenz
