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Frederick Lenz

Frederick Lenz Quotes

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Frederick Lenz was an American author known for his profound understanding and unique insights into Zen Buddhism. His works blended Zen philosophy with modern life, resonating with readers worldwide.

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All Buddhism Ifs People Mind World Enlightenment Meditation Yoga Way Rama Awareness Self Teacher Thinking Light Energy Enlightened Inspirational States Karma

Famous Frederick Lenz Quotes

“There are certain protective forces in the universe that do watch over us, but the innocent die too.”

Inspirational Certain Dies Universe Force Watches Buddhism Innocent Protective

Author:Frederick Lenz

“Why become enlightened? Why join the military? Why get married? Why cross the ocean? It is a personal choice. There is something in a person that draws them to the light.”

Inspirational Persons Light Choices Military Buddhism Ocean Married Draws Crosses Enlightened Personal Choice

Author:Frederick Lenz

“Life hurts at times. It hurts to have a body at times, hurts to be born, hurts to live, hurts to die, but it can be ecstasy beyond comprehension. You can know that ecstasy. It is inside of you.”

Knows Inspirational Body Dies Born Hurt Buddhism Ecstasy It Hurts Comprehension Life Hurts

Author:Frederick Lenz

“On your journey, remember there is no end. That is true knowledge. There is no final knowledge. There is no final enlightenment, that is a very finite, human way of seeing things.”

Way Inspirational Humans Ends Remember Seeing Journey Buddhism Enlightenment Finals Finite True Knowledge

Author:Frederick Lenz

“You are sitting on this little planet, spaceship earth. The universe is very accessible to you. You don't need a spaceship to travel there. Most of the worlds are non-physical. And it's all God; it's all eternity”

World Inspirational Needs Littles Earth Universe Planets Buddhism Sitting Eternity Spaceships

Author:Frederick Lenz

“No lifetime is a loss if you've leaned something, because that learning stays with you. There is no such thing as a wasted life, if you have learned.”

Ifs Inspirational Loss Buddhism Lifetime Wasted Life

Author:Frederick Lenz

“If this is the only life, then everything assumes too great an importance. We have to get everything out of life and we overdo it.”

Ifs Inspirational Buddhism Importance Assuming

Author:Frederick Lenz

“The trap of the self is the trap that causes unhappiness. We define ourselves too much; whereas the infinite, the pure radiant spirit, is not so definable.”

Inspirational Self Spirit Causes Too Much Buddhism Pure Infinite Unhappiness Traps Radiant

Author:Frederick Lenz

“If you know that you have had countless lives, then what happens in this life is not quite as traumatic.”

Ifs Knows Inspirational Happens Life Is Buddhism This Life

Author:Frederick Lenz

“The essence of all reincarnation is to have the best lifetime now that you've ever had, no matter what's going on.”

Inspirational Matter Buddhism Essence No Matter What Lifetime Reincarnation

Author:Frederick Lenz

“When your consciousness expands you are in a world, literally, of light. You live in a world of light where nothing is solid. You don't have to be enlightened to have this experience. You just have to start the inner journey.”

World Inspirational Light Consciousness Journey Buddhism Enlightened Inner Journey

Author:Frederick Lenz

“When your life becomes clear and pure, when your mind is clear and your view of life is unobstructed, then you'll be at peace with yourself. Then you will be happy.”

Inspirational Mind Life Is Views Clear Buddhism Pure

Author:Frederick Lenz

“Knowledge comes from personal experience of truth and awareness, not from conversation.”

Inspirational Awareness Buddhism Conversation Personal Experiences

Author:Frederick Lenz

“We sit here on the oasis of human consciousness and the verbal plane trying to talk about something that we just have to go and see and do and feel.”

Inspirational Feels Trying Humans Consciousness Buddhism Planes Human Consciousness Oasis

Author:Frederick Lenz

“Only when you are by yourself can you realize how wonderful you are.”

Inspirational Realizing Wonderful Buddhism

Author:Frederick Lenz

“Your inner being already knows. It's trying to communicate with you. But it needs to shift you into a different state of mind.”

Knows Inspirational Needs Trying Mind Different States Buddhism Communicate State Of Mind

Author:Frederick Lenz

“There is an alternative. It's an old alternative. It's not for everybody. It's only for people who are smart, limited market. It's enlightenment.”

People Inspirational Buddhism Smart Enlightenment Alternatives

Author:Frederick Lenz

“Meditation is the pathway to enlightenment, and I would encourage you to follow that pathway as far as you can, into ecstasy.”

Inspirational Meditation Buddhism Enlightenment Ecstasy Pathways

Author:Frederick Lenz

“Enlightenment is already there inside us and all things. All we have to do is get something out of the way that is causing us not to see that.”

Way Inspirational Buddhism Enlightenment All Things

Author:Frederick Lenz

“It's not logical, self-realization. If it was, everybody would be self-realized because everybody is logical.”

Ifs Inspirational Self Would Be Buddhism Self Realization Realization Logical

Author:Frederick Lenz

“You are your state of mind. Your state of mind creates your view, or your window, on life.”

Inspirational Mind States Views Inspirational Life Buddhism Window State Of Mind

Author:Frederick Lenz

“I offer you the possibilities of immortality, a pathway that leads beyond the known and the unknown, few follow it.”

Inspirational Known Possibility Buddhism Offers Immortality Pathways

Author:Frederick Lenz

“If you are trying to aid people in the process of self-discovery, what you have to do is confound them with so many concepts that are contradictory, yet each make complete sense in its own right.”

People Ifs Inspirational Trying Self Process Buddhism Concepts Discovery Aids Self Discovery Contradictory

Author:Frederick Lenz

“Reason is a terrible trap because you will be satisfied with answers. And if you are satisfied with answers, you'll never come to know what life really is.”

Ifs Knows Inspirational Reason Answers Buddhism Terrible Satisfied Mysticism Traps

Author:Frederick Lenz

“There are so many traps. There are so many opportunities. Life is a river and we take our boat and we go down it.”

Inspirational Life Is Opportunity Buddhism Rivers Boat Traps

Author:Frederick Lenz

“Success and failure are terrible traps.”

Inspirational Buddhism Terrible Traps Success And Failure

Author:Frederick Lenz

“Everything we see is an illusion. Even our perceptions of truth are illusory, illusory in the sense they're not complete.”

Inspirational Buddhism Perception Illusion Illusory

Author:Frederick Lenz

“How strange it is to be human. For a short moment we are conscious of the glories of life then we become silent again. Perhaps there is more. Look more deeply into the matter.”

Inspirational Humans Looks Matter Moments Strange Buddhism Glory Conscious Silent Reincarnation

Author:Frederick Lenz

“You can lead an uncommonly fine life. But it takes determination. You have to march to the beat of different drummer. You have to decide.”

Inspirational Different Buddhism Fine Beats Determination March Drummer

Author:Frederick Lenz

“We have the possibility of being far removed from what we are, of beginning to taste it and feel it. That is direct knowledge. That is truth. Anything else is mere words.”

Inspirational Feels Possibility Buddhism Taste Direct Mere

Author:Frederick Lenz

“I would encourage you to follow the pathway to enlightenment, to learn to meditate, to practice mindfulness, and not to really care what anybody thinks about you, including yourself.”

Thinking Inspirational Care Practice Buddhism Mindfulness Enlightenment Including Pathways

Author:Frederick Lenz

“These are the mysterious ways of knowledge, power and enlightenment. I can only allude to them in words. I cannot possibly explain what this process is like.”

Way Inspirational I Can Process Buddhism Enlightenment Mysterious Mysterious Ways Power Of Knowledge

Author:Frederick Lenz

“Most people are fragile. They're fragile in the sense that they're afraid of the unknown, so they cling to each other. They cling to families, traditions, ways of seeing life that protect them from the immensity of the unknown”

People Way Inspirational Seeing Buddhism Protect Tradition Fragile Immensity Family Tradition

Author:Frederick Lenz

“If you think you are a vile slime, that means that you aspire to something higher...It's because you have a sense of perfection, and you obviously want that, that you find something wrong.”

Ifs Thinking Want Inspirational Mean Buddhism Higher Perfection Aspire Slime

Author:Frederick Lenz

“Opinions are secondary when dealing with reality. They're subjective reflections.”

Inspirational Reality Opinion Buddhism Reflection Subjective

Author:Frederick Lenz

“There's no difference between winning and losing. They are the same type of experience. Winning and losing are sensorial, affixed to an ego, blocked in time and space and none of them ultimately make you happy very long”

Inspirational Long Winning Differences Space Buddhism Type Ego Losing Time And Space Make You Happy Blocked Winning And Losing

Author:Frederick Lenz

“There are really only three important things to remember in life: To care, to share, and to be fair. This is not a new idea at all, and yet, observing how most people live their lives, you might think it was.”

People Thinking Inspirational Important Ideas Might Care Remember Three Share Buddhism Fairs Important Things New Ideas Observing

Author:Frederick Lenz

“The surface personality is only the beginning of what we are. So as we meditate, we still that surface personality, we can see beyond it, and we see that we encompass multitudes.”

Inspirational Stills Buddhism Personality Surface Multitudes

Author:Frederick Lenz

“How to unravel the knot of reality? Slowly and patiently. You cannot run away from it. You cannot run towards it. Yet truth runs in your footsteps. It is the face in the mirror, the light of the sun, the winter rainstorms, the heat of summer in the city”

Inspirational Reality Light Running Faces Cities Sun Buddhism Summer Mirrors Winter Heat Running Away Footsteps Knots Rainstorms

Author:Frederick Lenz

“Don't run away from the world. The world is God. Don't run towards the world. God is the void. Don't be afraid of the complexities of this life, nor the stark simplicity of death.”

World Inspirational Running Buddhism Simplicity This Life Complexity Running Away Void Starks

Author:Frederick Lenz

“You are not what you seem to be. You are one of God's endless dreams in search of wakefulness. Meditation is wakefulness.”

Inspirational Dream Seems Meditation Buddhism Endless Be You

Author:Frederick Lenz

“You are a fluid metaphor for existence. You are your own death and your own rebirth. Here is forever. It never changes. We bring perpetual oblivion until we change the world.”

World Inspirational Existence Forever Buddhism Metaphor Changing The World Perpetual Rebirth Oblivion Never Change Fluid

Author:Frederick Lenz

“Be still, Be joyous, Celebrate creation, preservation and destruction; For these are the seasons of your life: Of your knowing and being.”

Inspirational Stills Knowing Creation Buddhism Destruction Seasons Celebrate Preservation Joyous

Author:Frederick Lenz

“One day you will arrive at a station on the train of existence that you've always known has been there. You'll find there will be no train in sight, with no sense of arrival. There is only a perpetual arrival, a timeless condition of infinite awareness.”

Inspirational Has Beens Existence Known Conditions Awareness Buddhism One Day Sight Infinite Train Stations Perpetual Timeless Arrivals

Author:Frederick Lenz

“A part of us resists all of this and wants to make it sound as if it's much too religious, an arbitrary thing that we have to do with our life. This is nonsense. This is the real fun.”

Ifs Want Inspirational Real Fun Sound Religious Our Lives Buddhism Nonsense Arbitrary

Author:Frederick Lenz

“Self-discovery is realistic. It's not built on ideas and philosophies. It's what works. Philosophies are nice if you like philosophies. But self-discovery is predicated on something that really brings you into enlightened states of mind.”

Ifs Inspirational Mind Ideas Self States Philosophy Nice Buddhism Discovery Built Self Discovery Enlightened Realistic State Of Mind

Author:Frederick Lenz

“If you're a person who just wants to be in the world and doesn't want any knowledge, then I don't know what you are doing with this tape. Turn it off immediately.”

Ifs Knows World Want Inspirational Persons Turns Buddhism Tape

Author:Frederick Lenz

“Meditation is the journey to happiness.”

Meditation Journey Buddhism

Author:Frederick Lenz

“Meditation is a bright, hopeful practice in which we learn to make our mind quiet so that the infinite, perfect light of enlightenment can flow through us.”

Mind Light Perfect Practice Meditation Buddhism Quiet Enlightenment Flow Infinite Hopeful

Author:Frederick Lenz

“Meditation is essential because meditation opens the mind to itself.”

Mind Meditation Buddhism Essentials

Author:Frederick Lenz

About the Author

Born: February 9, 1950
Died: April 12, 1998
Known for: Author
Quotes: 4397

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