Quotes About Zen

Zen enriches no one. There is no body to be found. The birds may come and circle for a while in the place where it is thought to be. But they soon go elsewhere. When they are gone, the "nothing," the "no-body" that was there, suddenly appears. That is Zen. It was there all the time but the scavengers missed it, because it was not their kind of prey.

Jared had his back to the wall, which Kami thought was a reflex when he was uncomfortable. She wanted to shield him. “He was doing some—Zen jogging,” she claimed. Jared flicked her an incredulous glance. “Yes,” he said slowly. “Zen jogging. I wasn’t wearing that many clothes because—that’s part of the process. You’re meant to commune with the elements. Normally, I wouldn’t have worn my jeans, but I put them on because I know the English are a modest people.

Zen is poetry; poetry is Zen.

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.

The practice of Zen mind is beginner's mind. The innocence of the first inquiry—what am I?—is needed throughout Zen practice. The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the expert, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all the possibilities. It is the kind of mind which can see things as they are, which step by step and in a flash can realize the original nature of everything.

I raise my hand; I take a book from the other side of this desk; I hear the boys playing ball outside my window; I see the clouds blown away beyond the neighboring woods:-in all these I am practicing Zen, I am living Zen. No worldly discussion is necessary, or any explanation.

Every man now is responsible to create a buddhafield around himself, an energy field that goes on becoming bigger and bigger. Create as many vibrations of laughter, joy, celebration, as possible; dance, sing, let the whole of humanity by and by catch the fire of Zen and the wind of Zen.

The object of Zen is not to kill all feelings and become anesthetized to pain and fear. The object of Zen is to free us to scream loudly and fully when it is time to scream.

Zen... does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.

In Zen Buddhism, the greater your doubt, the greater will be your enlightenment. That is why doubt can be a good thing. If you are too sure, if you always have conviction, then you may be caught in your wrong perception for a long time.

Zen provides a structure that supports our exploring the practice and the teachings for ourselves.

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.

Zen is...joyous iconoclasm which respects nothing and no one, particularly itself.

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.

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.

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

Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh is one of the most beloved Buddhist teachers in the West, a rare combination of mystic, poet, scholar, and activist. His luminous presence and the simple, compassionate clarity of his writings have touched countless lives.

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.

There is no need to have a deep understanding of Zen.

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.

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.

Abundant choice doesn't force us to look for the absolute best of everything. It allows us to find the extremes in those things we really care about, whether that means great coffee, jeans cut wide across the hips, or a spouse who shares your zeal for mountaineering, Zen meditation, and science fiction.

Have the right attitude in advanced practice. Feel that you are always a beginner in Zen. They refer to it as "beginners mind". I feel I am a beginner, always; because it's true.

In zen, it is a cardinal sin to waste time. To waste time is to squander the here and now, which, if you think about it, is all that we have.

Zen has no secrets other than seriously thinking about life and death.

I 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.

I feel I'm pretty zen and laid back. I don't have a lot of rage in my real life.

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.

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.

I'm not a dogmatic Christian and I don't believe in the Bible literally, but I realized that Jesus is basically a very Zen dude.

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.

Baseball is one of the most beautiful games. It is. It is a very Zen-like game.

Zen culture invites us to experience reality without the intervening distractions of intellect, categories, analysis.

In Zen, and in other forms of self discovery, we do have a transference that occurs where psychically, information, blocks of attention, are transferred to the student.

What are you, Zen Master Fang?

Rigging 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.

I 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.

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.

Zen pretty much comes down to three things -- everything changes; everything is connected; pay attention.

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

Deluded beings think that if they get in a battle with a Zen Master or with a Don Juan, that it's going enhance their life if they win. You can never take power from someone else any more than you can take sunlight.

Harmonizing opposites by going back to their source is the distinctive quality of the Zen attitude, the Middle Way: embracing contradictions, making a synthesis of them, achieving balance.

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.

Zen Buddhism is a discipline where belief isn't necessary.

Zen brings creativity. And remember, if you want to be one with the creator, you will have to learn some ways of creativity. The only way to be one with the creator is to be in some moment of creativity, when you are lost. The potter is lost in making his pottery; the potter is lost while working on the wheel. The painter is lost while painting. The dancer is lost; there is no dancer, only the dance remains. Those are the peak moments, where you touch God, where God touches you.

One has to adopt a sort of Zen calm, in which you know you wrote the best book that you could at the time.

But the transformation of consciousness undertaken in Taoism and Zen is more like the correction of faulty perception or the curing of a disease. It is not an acquisitive process of learning more and more facts or greater and greater skills, but rather an unlearning of wrong habits and opinions. As Lao-tzu said, "The scholar gains every day, but the Taoist loses every day.

Zen aims at freedom but its practice is disciplined.