Quotes About Zen

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.

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.

So the most difficult thing is always to keep your beginner's mind. There is no need to have a deep understanding of Zen. Even though you read much Zen literature, you must read each sentence with a fresh mind. You should not say, "I know what Zen is," or "I have attained enlightenment." 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.

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.

A well known Los Angeles newspaper referred to a small group of gentlemen who live up on a mountain and practice Zen as 'the Zen cult'. The cult phenomenon is definitely journalistically 'in'.

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.

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.

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.

I seemed to recall some words from an old Zen master, something like, "My Zen cuts down mountains." My rejection of Buddhism was a cutting down of mountains; that is precisely how it felt to me.

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.

Until we recognize the SELF that exists apart from who we think we are - we cannot know the Ch'an ( ZEN ) MIND

Someone once inquired of a Far Eastern Zen master, who had a great serenity and peace about him no matter what pressures he faced, "How do you maintain that serenity and peace?" He replied, "I never leave my place of meditation." He meditated early in the morning and for the rest of the day, he carried the peace of those moments with him in his mind and heart.

In the West, we think of sports and athletics as individual achievement, the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat; it all revolves around the ego. This has nothing to do with the Zen of sports and athletics.

I teach Zen, tantric mysticism, jnana yoga, bhakti yoga, Tibetan mysticism, occultism and psychic development. I also teach poetry and literature, film and many other different things.

Zen is not some fancy, special art of living. Our teaching is just to live, always in reality, in its exact sense. To make our effort, moment after moment, is our way.

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.

Zen teaches that our approach to today determines our whole approach to life.

There are different pathways - be it Zen, tantra, karma yoga, or jnana yoga. Different ways have been devised to do the same thing for different types of people according to their temperament.

There is a story in Zen circles about a man and a horse. The horse is galloping quickly, and it appears that the man on the horse is going somewhere important. Another man standing alongside the road, shouts, «Where are you going?» and the first man replies, «I don't know! Ask the horse!» This is also our story. We are riding a horse, and we don't know where we are going and we can't stop. The horse is our habit energy pulling us along, and we are powerless.

The whole point of Zen is to suspend the rules we have superimposed on things and to see the world as it is

In life as well as in art Zen never wastes energy in stopping to explain; it only indicates.

There is no one way to salvation, whatever the manner in which a man may proceed. All forms and variations are governed by the eternal intelligence of the Universe that enables a man to approach perfection. It may be in the arts of music and painting or it may be in commerce, law, or medicine. It may be in the study of war or the study of peace. Each is as important as any other. Spiritual enlightenment through religious meditation such as Zen or in any other way is as viable and functional as any "Way."... A person should study as they see fit.

Zen phrase says The instant you speak about a thing you miss the mark.

The beauty of Zen is found in simplicity and tranquility, in a sense of the all-embracing harmony of things.

Although profoundly "inconsequential," the Zen experience has consequences in the sense that it may be applied in any direction, to any conceivable human activity, and that wherever it is so applied it lends an unmistakable quality to the work.

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.

It's pretentious to say, but my art is like a little Zen story, a story with a question mark at the end. People can take from it what they need. If somebody says, "Your art is very funny," I say, "You are totally right." If somebody says, "Your art is very sad," I say, "You are totally right." In Japan they say, "Your art is very Japanese, you even look Japanese.Your great-grandfather was most surely a Japanese man." And I say, "You are totally right."

In fact, in many ways my mother was quite hippy-dippy, serving macrobiotic food and reading 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.'

I've been in these tabloids for 14 years now, and at some point you just become a Zen master of it all

There was a famous Zen master whom people would seek out to become enlightened. He was strict and would occupy people with things having nothing to do with seeking enlightenment. You see, that is the only way to achieve enlightenment; by not focusing on achieving it. Then, one day it will just come to you.

In Zen brush-painting, the circle is a master's problem. It represents everything and nothing, and in so doing, the universe.

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.

Korea's first Zen Master-poet wrote simple yet elegant poetry of the world he inhabited, both physically and spiritually, and of daily insights-a pause along the way for a deep clear breath, a moon-viewing moment, a seasonal note or a farewell poem to a departing monk. His poems speak softly and clearly, like hearing a temple bell that was struck a thousand years ago.

I nudged myself closer to the ledge and closed my eyes and thought 'Oh what a life this is, why do we have to be born in the first place, and only so we can have our poor gentle flesh laid out to such impossible horrors as huge mountains and rock and empty space,' and with horror I remembered the famous Zen saying, 'When you get to the top of a mountain, keep climbing.' The saying made my hair stand on end; it had been such cute poetry sitting on Alvah's straw mats.

Your immediate experience is Tantric Zen. How aware are you of your immediate experience? - Probably not that aware.

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

Zen has no business with ideas.

I may discuss contemporary cinema, how to shop at a mall without losing energy, how to use the power of mind to increase career and academic success, the Zen of sports, reincarnation, karma, sex, the experience of "suchness" or a new book by Stephen King.

Work in a place that feels good to you. Select the best of that which is available. The Zen of working is just to do it, not to worry about it. Feel you would be doing it without the money.

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.

I feel like I'm being too Zen. I'm inhaling too much patchouli and incense. It's embarrassing.

In Tantric Zen there is no rule. There is only your immediate experience.