Popular quotes about Zen! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
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.
Frederick LenzIf you have the sense of participation in sports or athletics, of being a player, then you are not really into the Zen mind. In Zen mind there is no sense of self in the play.
Frederick LenzIf the Zen master sees that it will cause a person to progress, he will ask that person to do a task. The task is charged with power if it's performed properly. It's a koan between yourself and the Zen Master.
Frederick LenzZen is really just a reminder to stay alive and to be awake. We tend to daydream all the time, speculating about the future and dwelling on the past. Zen practice is about appreciating your life in this moment. If you are truly aware of five minutes a day, then you are doing pretty well. We are beset by both the future and the past, and there is no reality apart from the here and now.
Peter MatthiessenZen, on the other hand, is not so dogmatically sterile, though there are certainly traces and more than traces of this austerity. However, with Zen we have not only the void, but the fertile void. The ink lines in a sumi-e painting show this fertility of the void ever ready to brim over into existence.
Quentin S. CrispMy ethics, my sense of morality, my work ethic, my sense of compassion for suffering humanity, all of that comes directly out of the practice of poetry, as does my Buddhist practice. Poetry is a very important element in the history of Buddhism in general and in Zen in particular. It was really Zen that motivated me to change the way I perceive the world.
Sam HamillThe 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 LenzRegarding R. H. Blyth: Blyth's four volume Haiku became especially popular at this time [1950's] because his translations were based on the assumption that the haiku was the poetic expression of Zen. Not surprisingly, his books attracted the attention of the Beat school, most notably writers such as Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder and Jack Kerouac, all of whom had a prior interest in Zen.
Reginald Horace BlythThe word impossible contains the word possible' What's that-- some Zen thing?' I think Star Trek. Mr. Spock.
Dean KoontzI'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.
LissieZen is just a lifestyle, your everyday life. It is doing your best at your job, relationships, health, hobbies, and other daily activities!
MikaAt 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 WarnerI heard Zen teacher one time talking about abortion, and he was saying the way that abortion makes bad karma is any time the person involved pretends that there's not a cost to the choice, one way or the other; whether you get it or don't get it, there's a cost. That's just basic responsibility, to admit that there's a cost. And the bad karma is when you pretend that the thing is free.
George SaundersTantric 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 LenzIn 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.
Frederick LenzZen 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.
Shunryu SuzukiWhen 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 NortonThe 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 SosekiThe whole point of Zen is to suspend the rules we have superimposed on things and to see the world as it is
Alan WattsTantric Zen leads to illumination and fun right here and now, which is why I like it.
Frederick LenzThere 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.
Miyamoto MusashiHere's an example: someone says, "Master, please hand me the knife," and he hands them the knife, blade first. "Please give me the other end," he says. And the master replies, "What would you do with the other end?" This is answering an everyday matter in terms of the metaphysical. When the question is, "Master, what is the fundamental principle of Buddhism?" Then he replies, "There is enough breeze in this fan to keep me cool." That is answering the metaphysical in terms of the everyday, and that is, more or less, the principle zen works on. The mundane and the sacred are one and the same.
Alan WattsI came to California in 1970 and so many people were asking if I was a Buddhist or knew Zen theory, asking if I was enlightened already or not. So I said, "Yes, I am enlightened," and then I studied quickly to catch up.
Hiroshi SugimotoI don't try to define the cosmos, I know it's unknowable, but I can understand my place in the world and my place in the universe through a mixture of Taoism, Catholicism, Zen or whatever I have at hand.
Guillermo del ToroZen says everything is divine so how can anything be special? All is special. Nothing is non-special so nothing can be special.
RajneeshThe beauty of Zen is found in simplicity and tranquility, in a sense of the all-embracing harmony of things.
Thich Thien-AnThis is the Zen approach: nothing is there to be done. There is nothing to do. One has just to be. Have a rest and be ordinary and be natural.
RajneeshWhen I was working at Omega, I took this Zen retreat, where you're quiet, you don't say anything for a week, and this guy there said, "You're going to be enlightened at the end of this week, that's my goal." I was the engineer, so I was recording everything at it was happening, but I was also participating, because I felt like it. So at the end of it, I did understand what enlightenment was, one-hundred percent.
Larkin GrimmLike the moon on the water, in a way. When you confront a Zen master, what you're really seeing are not his limitations but yours.
Pico IyerTantric Zen is for the individual who is in love with both the finite and the infinite, who gets a kick out of this weird transitory world and at the same time, wants to step beyond it.
Frederick LenzZazen 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.
HuinengThink of Zen, of the Void, of Good and Evil and you are bound hand and foot. Think only and entirely and completely of what you are doing at the moment and you are free as a bird.
Reginald Horace BlythFrom the Zen view all beings are in the grip of the three poisons, greed, anger and delusion (ignorance).
Brenda ShoshannaI am an architect. I try to feel the transparency in contemporary buildings and I try to understand the transparency in Zen poetry. I just want to mix all those things.
Luis GonzalezRigging is like Zen meditation. You must bend over the boat until your back is breaking, until your brain is filled with numbers and fractions of numbers, until you can accurately measure an oarlock's pitch without bothering to use the pitch meter. Only then will you see the way of eternal rigging happiness.
Brad Alan LewisI always take kind of a zen view of casting and I really don't remember people who passed. I kind of turn it over to the universe and figure, 'Wow, I guess that wasn't meant to be.' It doesn't sit with me.
Peter FarrellyThere is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist/Unitarian, Irish/Italian/Octogenarian/Zen Buddhist, Zionist/Seventh-day Adventist, Women's Lib/Republican, Mattachine/FourSquareGospel feels it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse. Every dimwit editor who sees himself as the source of all dreary blanc-mange plain porridge unleavened literature, licks his guillotine and eyes the neck of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery rhyme.
Ray BradburyThere 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.
Masaaki HatsumiAn elegant simplicity is an understated, organic aesthetic that contrasts with the excess of consumerist lifestyles. Drawing from influences ranging from Zen to the Quakers, it celebrates natural materials and clean, functional expressions, such as are found in many of the hand-made arts and crafts from this community.
Duane ElginWhen 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 SudoTo be a good Zen Buddhist it is not enough to follow the teaching of its founder; we have to experience the Buddha's experience.
D.T. SuzukiAmong the most remarkable features characterizing Zen we find these: spirituality, directness of expression, disregard of form or conventionalism, and frequently an almost wanton delight in going astray from respectability.
D.T. SuzukiAs a dialectical teacher, I have had many lives where I have taught Zen and Tibetan Buddhism and mysticism. I teach in many different modalites. But the theme that unites them - is love.
Frederick LenzThe famous Zen parable about the master for whom, before his studies, mountains were only mountains, but during his studies mountains were no longer mountains, and afterward mountains were again mountains could be interpreted as an alleory about [the perpetual paradox that when one is closest to a destination one is also the farthest).
Rebecca Solnit