Top 100 Zen's Quotes
#1. Hornergy' is Zen's term for the indomitable athletic edge powered by sexual restraint. The basketball, baseball and football teams haven't had a winning season in years. The table-tennis team, however, is undefeated.
Megan McCafferty
#2. As Zie Zen's ashes flew on the wind, so did the time of those who had been born in freedom, caged in Silence, only to see it fall. Now . . . now it was the time of those who had been born in Silence, fought for freedom.
Nalini Singh
#3. I'm a poet who practices Zen. And it's not, I'm somebody who practices Zen who writes poetry. There's no separation for me.
Sam Hamill
#4. Happiness will be fleeting if you constantly search for it in places that can be taken away. It's an inside job.
Nikki Rowe
#5. 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
#6. He knows not where he's going,
For the ocean will decide,
Its not the destination,
It's the glory of the ride
Edward Monkton
#7. It is very possible to acknowledge another person's concerns without entering into their vibration.
Alaric Hutchinson
#8. We cannot dim another person's light without first extinguishing our own.
Alaric Hutchinson
#9. Render unto meditation the things that are meditation's, and unto medication the things that are medication's.
Barry Graham
#10. A point of perspection dances in the balance of the seer's vision.
Zen Benefiel
#11. The secret of Soto Zen is just two words: not always so ... In Japanese, it's two words, three words in English. That is the secret of our practice.
Shunryu Suzuki
#12. But until then, and right now, the sun is bright, the air is cool, my head is clear, there's a whole day ahead of us, we're almost to the mountains, it's a good day to be alive. It's this thinner air that does it. You always feel like this when you start getting into higher altitudes.
Robert M. Pirsig
#13. What I would say to filmmakers, if I may be so bold or so arrogant, is to draw inspiration from other filmmakers, but go to the place in your own gut where everything is nothing. That's a very Zen thing to say, but that place of nothing is where real creativity comes out of.
Lawrence Bender
#14. I am not a big technology person. I don't go on the Internet really much at all. Drawing is like a zen thing; it's private, which in this day and age is harder to come by.
Tim Burton
#15. Working out is my biggest hobby. It's my Zen hour. I just zone out.
Zac Efron
#16. I was talking to a Zen master the other day and he said, "You shall be my disciple."I looked at him and said, "Who was Buddha's teacher?" He looked at me in a very odd way for a moment and then he burst into laughter and handed me a piece of clover.
Alan Watts
#17. He was a typical specimen of the younger son in avid pursuit of mediocrity with which the Theurgist's teemed:
Zen Cho
#18. Other dragons are bastards. I moved out of my mother's cave after my mother tried to rip my guts out.
Granted, I had tried to steal her Tiara of Clairvoyance.
Zen Cho
#19. It's kind of like a Zen thing. Like playing the piano, or being a centipede in Heaven.
Peter Watts
#20. Tantric Zen is for someone who is really broad-minded. It is Bodhidharma's Zen, your Zen, my Zen. Which doesn't mean I have a problem with Japanese Zen. Most Japanese Zen is minding your p's and q's.
Frederick Lenz
#21. This is also the real secret of the arts: always be a beginner. Be very very careful about this point. If you start to practice zazen, you will begin to appreciate your beginner's mind. It is the secret of Zen practice.
Shunryu Suzuki
#22. A zen master's life is one continuous mistake.
Dogen
#23. A falcon hovers at the edge of the sky.
Two gulls drift slowly up the river.
Vulnerable while they ride the wind,
they coast and glide with ease.
Dew is heavy on the grass below,
the spider's web is ready.
Heaven's ways include the human:
among a thousand sorrows, I stand alone.
Du Fu
#24. There's something so zen-like and grateful of just ripping a hot wing apart and getting it all over your face, and everyone's happy. I love that atmosphere.
Ronda Rousey
#25. To escape from the world means that one's mind is not concerned with the opinions of the world.
Dogen
#26. Zen is not a particular state but the normal state: silent, peaceful, unagitated. In Zazen neither intention, analysis, specific effort nor imagination take place. It's enough just to be without hypocrisy, dogmatism, arrogance - embracing all opposites.
Taisen Deshimaru
#27. 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
#28. So I'm skeptical and cynical about the whole thing and it's only if something seems to be genuine that I would pursue it. That's why I've stuck with Zen for so long and not gone on to some other path with it.
Brad Warner
#29. In the last five years I used to go to Zen practice once a month, but since I assumed the post of prime minister it's been much harder.
Shinzo Abe
#30. 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
#32. The word impossible contains the word possible'
What's that
some Zen thing?'
I think Star Trek. Mr. Spock.
Dean Koontz
#33. 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
#34. There's a place where everything comes together and where it's all the same. That state of mind, in which all things are the same, is the state of mind of Tantric Zen.
Frederick Lenz
#35. However, it should in no way be associated with that great body of factual information relating to orthodox Zen Buddhist practice. It's not very factual on motorcycles either.
Robert M. Pirsig
#36. Happiness only comes when you let go of who you think you are. If you think you're wealthy and powerful and noble and truthful or horrible and demonic, whatever it may be, it's all a waste of time. Take it from the Zen Master. He knows.
Frederick Lenz
#37. The mind's best trick is the illusion that it exists.
Marty Rubin
#38. I'm very much a homebody so once I have my home set up how I want it, that's my zen, my comfy little nest where I drink my wine and watch my Netflix.
Lissie
#39. The path of Zen is not easy. It's wonderful. It's beautiful beyond compare. You will experience more ecstasy and beauty than most people will in a thousand lifetimes.
Frederick Lenz
#40. After spending all that time in bed, I realized I was treating the act of eating as though it's the art of Zen, taking in just enough, a little at a time, slowly. Exactly the way I never did with food. Like dancing without passion, eating like that will never awaken your palate.
Kyung-ran Jo
#41. That's a waste of time. If you really understand Zen ... you can use any book. You could use the Bible. You could use Alice in Wonderland. You could use the dictionary, because ... the sound of the rain needs no translation.
Alan Watts
#42. Let's skip the Zen shit and just get back to the killing each other part.
Cassandra Gannon
#43. When we put our keys down, we should be conscious of putting them down. When we pick them up, we should be conscious of picking them up. That's all there is to zen.
Philip Toshio Sudo
#44. In pale moonlight / the wisteria's scent / comes from far away.
Yosa Buson
#45. Enlightenment isn't about reaching a destination of "knowing", it is about developing consistent vibrational harmony within one's self and with the surrounding world.
Alaric Hutchinson
#46. Watermelons and Zen students grow pretty much the same way. Long periods of sitting till they ripen and grow all juicy inside, but when you knock them on the head to see if they're ready sounds like nothing's going on.
Peter Levitt
#47. When composing a verse let there not be a hair's breath separating your mind from what you write; composition of a poem must be done in an instant, like a woodcutter felling a huge tree or a swordsman leaping at a dangerous enemy.
Matsuo Basho
#48. Since the decision to become a parent is invariably self-interested, it is my belief that a parent's obligation is to the child, and the child's obligation is to itself.
Zen Cho
#49. I consider writing practice a true Zen practice because it all comes back at you. You can't fool anyone because it's on the page.
Natalie Goldberg
#50. That's all there is, enlightenment on the end of a cock. It doesn't get any more Zen than that.
Jaden Wilkes
#51. Earth, mountains, rivers, hidden in this nothingness.
In this nothingness, earth, mountains, rivers revealed.
Spring flowers, winter snows.
There's no being or non-being, nor denial itself.
Saisho Hiroshi
#52. It is a mother's duty to teach her daughters about the uses of blood, particularly a magical daughter.
Zen Cho
#53. Write because you love the work, not because of what might come from it. The journey is the purpose. Very Zen-like, I know, but honest to God it's the truth. And I have never had to deal with writer's block. Knock on wood.
William Kent Krueger
#54. Zen, per se, is not just an art, it's not just a religion, it's a realisation.
Gene Clark
#55. Shigemori's body of work is a compelling manifesto for continuous cultural renewal.
Christian Tschumi
#56. Surfing soothes me, it's always been a kind of Zen experience for me. The ocean is so magnificent, peaceful, and awesome. The rest of the world disappears for me when I'm on a wave.
Paul Walker
#57. When I'm looking for Zen and I'm not saying this facetiously at all - I would really rather surf, scuba dive, or fly my plane. And, when I feel tension about the grind of work, it's not getting the money to make films versus making films that constitutes the grind, it's all this stuff.
Edward Norton
#59. The things I carry are my thoughts. That's it. They are the only weight. My thoughts determine whether I am free and light or burdened.
Kamal Ravikant
#60. 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
#61. Frank meditates?"
She grinned. "How'd you think he got that laid-back? We've got the only Zen security guard in London. Only he's really a butterfly dreaming he's a security guard.
Mike Carey
#62. In Zen brush-painting, the circle is a master's problem. It represents everything and nothing, and in so doing, the universe.
Mike Todd Jr.
#63. 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
#64. The entrance into Zen is the grasping of one's essential nature. It is absolutely impossible, however, to come to a clear understanding of our essential nature by any intellectual or philosophical method. It is accomplished only by the experience of self-realization through zazen.
Yamada Koun
#65. Having plants and flowers in my space makes me feel very calm and Zen. For me, it's important to meditate every morning to be very clear in the head, and nature really helps me do the same thing.
Nicola Formichetti
#66. Tantric Zen is more suited for this age that we live in. It give you rules, but in a gentle way. It's not as demanding.
Frederick Lenz
#67. You may wonder which came first: the skill or the hard work. But that's a moot point. The Zen master cleans his own studio. So should you.
Twyla Tharp
#68. Magic ran in the family. Even her mother's second cousin, who was adopted, did small spells on the side. She sold these from a stall in Kota Bharu. Her main wares were various types of fruit fried in batter, but if you bought five pisang or cempedak goreng, she threw in a jampi for free.
Zen Cho
#69. Shameless, impudent, meddling females, who presumed to set at naught the Society's prohibition on women's magic, and duped the common people with their potions and cantrips!
Zen Cho
#70. Positive simply means unifying energies, while negative simply means separating energies. It's not about what's good or bad, right or wrong. It's about
embracing what feels good and brings us closer to peace.
Alaric Hutchinson
#71. There's no rule in the end, but only the situation and the inclination of your mind
Steve Hagen
#72. Behind the cool mask of bravado, past the one-way mirror of his mind, underneath the rock-solid layers of self-control, in the Zen garden that was Master Sewer's soul, a high-pitched anxiety fart rustled through the still leaves. If farts could talk, this one would have said, Damn coppers!
Sorin Suciu
#73. In Zen Buddhism, "The Great Cessation" is a term that points to the abandoning of the effort to define one's self by any outer definition and to give up acts of futility. It is to let the world remain a mystery that cannot be captured by science, language, or any invention of the mind
Mike Scheidt
#74. He makes it sound so Zen. Or Jedi. Like some kind of Wolf Yoda. There is no try. And maybe that's all there is to it. Don't over-think the shift. Just embrace the form that I want to be in.
Kat Kruger
#75. Zazen is seated meditation-the opposite of contemplation-the emptying of the mind of all thoughts in order simply to be. In the midst of all evil, not a thought is aroused in the mind-this is called za. Seeing into one's Self-nature, not being moved at all-this is called Zen.
Huineng
#76. The person who's in the Zen monastery, who's doing a kind of poor job at meditating and a half-ass job cleaning the gardens is not doing very good yoga.
Frederick Lenz
#77. I like Catch-22, Gravity's Rainbow and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, for instance, because the authors of those three surrealistic novels - Joseph Heller, Thomas Pynchon and Robert Pirsig - invented their own rules, knowing that the old ones wouldn't do the job they had in mind.
William Zinsser
#78. The light is already there. In Zen Buddhism there's a little speck of dust on the mirror, and that's us.
Frederick Lenz
#79. With Zen we do it more through slight of hand, a very subtle and delicate shift in consciousness, which shifts the world. It's kind of done from the inside out.
Frederick Lenz
#80. Today we can see many different forms of Buddhism, such as Zen and Theravada Buddhism. All these different aspects are practices of Buddha's teachings, and all are equally precious; they are just different presentations.
Geshe Kelsang Gyatso
#82. The true tragedy in most people's lives is that they are far better than they imagine themselves to be and, as a result, end up being much less than they might be.
Earl R. Smith II
#83. Reading texts is no substitute for meditation and practicing Zen. If you read a book about a place, and you want to go there, you don't keep reading the book. You have to travel. That's what practice is about. Traveling. Walking the path.
Bill Porter
#84. Inspiration comes from everything from the entire world, and it's hard to pinpoint one thing. I can trace one inspiration to the writing of 13th-century Zen master Dogen Zenji, who writes beautifully about time.
Ruth Ozeki
#85. 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
#86. 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
#87. 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
#88. Life is more or less a lie, but then again, that's exactly the way we want it to be.
Bob Dylan
#89. Consider this:
1. Would you ride in a car whose driver was on the consciousness-expanding "entheogenic" drug LSD?
And here's a bonus question:
2. Why does an "expanded consciousness" include the inability to operate a motor vehicle?
Brad Warner
#90. Did I ever mention I used to be a delivery driver too? I was. I can read a map. What's more, using a brilliant mixture of zen navigation, Aristotelian logic, and pure rage I can get you your package and/or delicious sandwich relatively close to on-time.
Patrick Rothfuss
#91. There's kind of a Zen aspect to bowling. The pins are either staying up or down before you even throw your arm back. It's kind of a mind-set. You want to be in this perfect mind-set before you released the ball.
Jeff Bridges
#92. If you look at the world today, there are as many solutions as there are problems. I think that is a big part of creativity. That's why I started Urban Zen. Because I wanted to dress and address people.
Donna Karan
#93. 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.
#94. We sell tea in Starbucks, but I think the experience is very different. I think coffee is something that is quick - it's transactional. I think tea is more Zen-like. It requires a different environment.
Howard Schultz
#95. 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
#96. There's a Zen to acting, by being in the moment. That's where the power is.
Christine Ebersole
#97. That's essentially what Zen practice is about: functioning from moment to moment.
Charlotte Joko Beck
#98. It's a kind of zen question: if you write a book and no one reads it, is it really a book?
Lee Child
#99. 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
#100. 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
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