Zen Masters Quotes

#1. You have to begin to develop a repertory of jokes, multi-plane spiritual jokes, the sort of things the Zen masters tell each other when they're asleep. These are the secret teachings.

Frederick Lenz

#2. How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb? The plum tree in the garden!

Brad Warner

#3. Children are natural Zen masters; their world is brand new in each and every moment.

John Bradshaw

#4. I have lived with several Zen masters
all of them cats.

Eckhart Tolle

#5. If you want to travel the Way of Buddhas and Zen masters, then expect nothing, seek nothing, and grasp nothing.

Dogen

#6. As the Japanese Zen masters say, "Don't seek the truth; just drop your opinions". Drop your theories; don't seek the truth.

Anthony De Mello

#7. The secret of Zen masters is discovering the path of return to such moments, and knowing how to pave the way for such moments to arise. The masters know how to use the dazzling light of those moments to illuminate the journey of return, the journey that begins from nowhere and has no destination.

Thich Nhat Hanh

#8. Zen masters say you cannot see your reflection in running water, only in still water.

Elizabeth Gilbert

#9. The samurais were very interested in Zen because they admired the tremendous precision that the Zen Masters had, their lack of fear and pain and their absolute lack of fear of death.

Frederick Lenz

#10. 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

#11. Fish sense, applied in the field, is what the old Zen masters would call enlightenment: simply the ability to see what's right there in front of you without having to sift through a lot of thoughts and theories and, yes, expensive fishing tackle.

John Gierach

#12. 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

#13. At Patagonia, making a profit is not the goal because the Zen master would say profits happen 'when you do everything else right'.

Yvon Chouinard

#14. A Zen master used to say, It is clear and so it is hard to see. A dunce once searched for a fire with a lighted lantern. Had he known what fire was, he could have cooked his rice much sooner.

Rajneesh

#15. The real Zen of the old Chinese masters was wu-shih, or "no fuss."

Alan Watts

#16. 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

#17. you could have cut the lack of surprise and spread it on bread.

Stephen King

#18. Read about some squirrelly guy who claims that he just don't believe in fighting, and I wonder how long the rest of us can count on being free.

Merle Haggard

#19. Lila McCormick - you're partnered with Rico Vega."
Lila groaned, "No," while Rico pumped his fist twice to his heart and then raised a finger to the sky. " Gracias a dios.

Katie McGarry

#20. There is really only one Zen Master ... and that's yourself.

Frederick Lenz

#21. My comic sense, although deliberately Americanized, is, in its intent, much closer related to the crazy wisdom of Zen monks and the goofy genius of Taoist masters than it is to, say, the satirical gibes on Saturday Night Live. It has both a literary and a metaphysical function.

Tom Robbins

#22. If you're very, very conservative and you like that sort of practice, go find a very conservative Zen master and just do traditional Japanese practice, which is not that traditional actually.

Frederick Lenz

#23. You're not listening to the Zen master, what he is saying outwardly, but even more importantly ... what he is saying inwardly.

Frederick Lenz

#24. In Zen we have no gurus.

Frederick Lenz

#25. The Zen master can see precisely what it will take to cause your awareness to become free. But the Zen master can't do it for you.

Frederick Lenz

#26. My mind is not like a neat and tidy garden; it is a vast and untidy wilderness, full of irrelevancies, but with lots of places to wander and get lost.

Roopa Farooki

#27. Markets help people pursue their happiness more efficiently and effectively. Because they are so effective, markets provide benefits right here and right now, even while government is busy batching the protection of happiness.

Joel Miller

#28. I then supped with my companions, with whom I was soon after to part for ever - always a most melancholly, death-like idea - a sort of separation of soul; for all the regret which follows those from whom fate separates us, seems to be something torn from ourselves.

Mary Wollstonecraft

#29. It's a relationship like to a crusty Zen master, or something like that. And it is really like another entity because you cannot predict the answers.

Terence McKenna

#30. To remain caught up in ideas and words about Zen is, as the old masters say, to stink of Zen.

Alan Watts

#31. A zen master's life is one continuous mistake.

Dogen

#32. I've played a Nintendo Wii. I don't see it as a competitor. It's more of an expensive niche game device. We're selling a lot of PlayStation 3s now and it's still the best way to buy a Blu-ray player.

Howard Stringer

#33. I don't feel any real animosity towards critics when they write negative things. I think some are more perceptive than others. Some are very knowledgeable about painting. But it isn't something I have any influence over, so there isn't any point in worrying about it.

Peter Doig

#34. It takes one asshole to ruin the whole thing. That's it. One. The problem with the world is one asshole comes up with a really bad idea and now we're all taking our shoes off at the airport.

Steven Soderbergh

#35. When I'm sick of myself, and when I don't know what to say as a solo artist, I can write a song for a movie. When I don't know where to turn musically, being in a band - Rilo Kiley or Jenny & Johnny - the collaborative nature is really exciting.

Jenny Lewis

#36. How do you know if an angel has crossed your path? Sometimes you don't, because angels often appear as coincidences. That is, they seem like chance events, but they are really part of God's carefully orchestrated plan for your life ...

Gary Kinnaman