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Frederick Lenz

Frederick Lenz Quotes

Author

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

“Our thoughts will swim around and talk to us while we're sitting there, make fun of us, ignore us. But if you pay attention, if you don't look in the direction of your thoughts, you meditate.”

Ifs Looks Fun Pay Attention Sitting Pay Attention Swim Our Thoughts

Author:Frederick Lenz

“When a lot of people meditate what they do is they're thinking about other people. This is a terrible mistake. If you do this, stop!”

People Ifs Thinking Mistake Terrible

Author:Frederick Lenz

“If you focus on another person you take their energy in your body completely.”

Ifs Persons Body Energy Focus Your Body

Author:Frederick Lenz

“If you allow people, places and things, to pass through your mind during meditation, you will pull in all those other auras and you be much more confused and dissociated than you were prior to your meditation experience.”

People Ifs Mind Meditation Confused Auras

Author:Frederick Lenz

“If you start picking up other people's impressions while you are meditating, then instead of clearing yourself, you are just going to completely glom yourself up to the point where there is no meditation.”

People Ifs Meditation Impression Meditating Clearing

Author:Frederick Lenz

“Meditation will do you a disservice. It will confuse you more than clarify you. It will bring tremendous impurity in you - if you are allowing your mind to wander during the empowered experience.”

Ifs Mind Meditation Wander Allowing Empowered Disservice Impurity

Author:Frederick Lenz

“Granted you want to go beyond ideas and beyond thought, but that takes years of practice. If you must think, think good thoughts, happy thoughts, and constructive thoughts.”

Ifs Thinking Want Years Ideas Practice Granted Constructive Good Thoughts Happy Thoughts

Author:Frederick Lenz

“Meditation is not this kind of spacey stuff that makes it difficult to orient your life. If that's your experience of meditation, you're not meditating. You're tapping into the lower astral planes, which is not a healthy place for human beings to tap.”

Ifs Humans Kind Stuff Difficult Human Beings Meditation Healthy Planes Meditating Tapping

Author:Frederick Lenz

“When you meditate make sure you stay awake. If you are falling asleep get up and splash some water on yourself or sleep until you are refreshed.”

Ifs Fall Water Sleep Get Up Awake Falling Asleep

Author:Frederick Lenz

“You will notice the phenomena of meditation. You may see dazzling lights, feel energy coursing through different parts of your body, feel as if you are floating, hear sounds, or smell fragrances.”

Ifs Feels May Different Body Light Energy Sound Meditation Smell Your Body Floating Fragrance Dazzling

Author:Frederick Lenz

“Be neither attracted nor repulsed. You are watching a movie. If the visions are beautiful or horrible, Don't get caught up in them. Enjoy your popcorn.”

Ifs Beautiful Enjoy Vision Meditation Buddhism Caught Horrible Caught Up Popcorn

Author:Frederick Lenz

“Meditating everyday is essential. If you meditate every day and learn to control and stop your thoughts, you will become psychic.”

Ifs Essentials Everyday Psychics Meditating

Author:Frederick Lenz

“If you want to experience the unalloyed ecstasy of life, you can accomplish this through the twin Buddhist practices of meditation and mindfulness.”

Ifs Want Practice Meditation Buddhism Mindfulness Accomplish Buddhist Ecstasy Twins

Book:Surfing the Himalayas: conversations and travels with Master Fwap

Source: Surfing the Himalayas: conversations and travels with Master Fwap

“If you can't hold a person in your mind with a good thought, it is better not to think about them at all.”

Ifs Thinking Mind Persons Buddhism Mindfulness Good Thoughts

Author:Frederick Lenz

“If you hold a negative thought, then it will become more powerful and not only will it send bad energy to the person, but it will crash your consciousness. All the hard work of meditating is sabotaged.”

Ifs Persons Hard Energy Powerful Consciousness Hard Work Buddhism Mindfulness Negative Crash Meditating Negative Thoughts Bad Energy

Author:Frederick Lenz

“If you think of others in a jealous way or if you become angry, immediately pause for a moment. It's going to pull you down and send negative energy. At that moment, pause and correct yourself.”

Ifs Thinking Way Moments Energy Buddhism Mindfulness Negative Down And Angry That Moment Jealous Pauses Negative Energy

Author:Frederick Lenz

“If we try and direct our lives with only our limited rationalistic thoughts and our sense perceptions, then our actions and our activities will not be prefect.”

Ifs Trying Action Our Lives Buddhism Activity Perception Mindfulness Direct Our Actions Sense Perception

Book:Surfing the Himalayas: conversations and travels with Master Fwap

Source: Surfing the Himalayas: conversations and travels with Master Fwap

“Why do everything perfectly? Isn't perfection just an illusion? Tell me if it's an illusion if they don't fix your car perfectly next time you bring it in.”

Ifs Next Car Buddhism Mindfulness Illusion Perfection Next Time

Author:Frederick Lenz

“If you are just spaced out and you have no purpose in life, you pick everything up. Everybody else's thoughts will come into your mind, everyone else's desires.”

Ifs Mind Desire Purpose Buddhism Mindfulness Picks Purpose Of Life

Author:Frederick Lenz

“If President Bush does a lousy job, then he'll lose power. If the guy at McDonalds who's selling burgers does a great job, then he'll be much more powerful than President Bush.”

Ifs Doe Jobs Guy President Loses Powerful Buddhism Mindfulness Selling President Bush Mcdonalds Great Job Burgers

Author:Frederick Lenz

“If you are mindful in your work, if you put your best effort into it, then something comes back to you.”

Ifs Effort Buddhism Mindfulness Best Effort

Author:Frederick Lenz

“The unlimited mind, the diamond mind of the Buddha, is your mind, if you can get in touch with it. Stop thinking so much and tap into that psychic part of your being.”

Ifs Thinking Mind Buddhism Mindfulness Diamond Unlimited Psychics

Author:Frederick Lenz

“Think about what is in front of you, if you must think.”

Ifs Thinking Fronts Buddhism Mindfulness

Author:Frederick Lenz

“You have but a short time to live in this world. As you age, you will experience the pains of aging. If your hopes and joys rest upon the body, then you will suffer greatly.”

Ifs World Body Age Pain Joy Suffering This World Aging Short Time

Author:Frederick Lenz

“If you are the body, you are in terrible trouble! One small microbe will destroy it one day, if not an accident. You have but a short time to live in this world.”

Ifs World Body Suffering Trouble This World Terrible One Day Accidents Short Time Microbes

Author:Frederick Lenz

“If you wake up for a moment and look around at life, you will observe that nothing here lasts, nothing works out. There are no happy endings. All accomplishments are washed away by death or by the next moment.”

Ifs Looks Moments Lasts Suffering Next Wake Up Work Out Accomplishment Happy Endings Things Work Out

Author:Frederick Lenz

“Mind is not simply the collection of aggregate cells inside your brain. If you are only the grey matter, then when that dies, you won't exist any more. It's not that easy. You exist forever.”

Ifs Mind Matter Science Dies Easy Brain Forever Buddhism Cells Collections Reincarnation Grey Grey Matter

Author:Frederick Lenz

“If we get above the individualized soul's journey, you will see that we are all one. We are all one light. In that sense, we are all enlightened.”

Ifs Soul Light Journey Enlightened Reincarnation

Author:Frederick Lenz

“To think you can just go out and help people and somehow get a better life is not reincarnation as I know it. A better life comes from being happy and inner realizations. Now if helping others adds to that, well then, it's great.”

People Ifs Thinking Knows Wells Helping Life Is Add Helping Others Realization Reincarnation Better Life

Author:Frederick Lenz

“There is a popular conception about karma, and that is that as you sow, so shall you reap. That's only true if you're a farmer.”

Ifs Karma Conception Farmers Reap

Author:Frederick Lenz

“You are new at every moment. You are an extension of the previous moment of your awareness. You can radically change, if you unhook yourself from what you have been.”

Ifs Has Beens Moments Awareness Karma Extensions

Author:Frederick Lenz

“Karma is engendered by states of mind. If you are in a happy state of mind, that will engender one kind of karma. If you are in an unhappy state of mind, that will engender another kind of karma.”

Ifs Mind Kind States Karma Unhappy State Of Mind Karma Yoga

Author:Frederick Lenz

“If there wasn't a way around the samskaras, no one would ever become enlightened.”

Ifs Way Karma Enlightened Samskara

Author:Frederick Lenz

“If you choose to draw from the inner well of free will, then you can make choices that are outside your current karmic patterns.”

Ifs Wells Choices Draws Patterns Currents Karma Free Will You Choose

Book:Surfing the Himalayas: conversations and travels with Master Fwap

Source: Surfing the Himalayas: conversations and travels with Master Fwap

“If your motives are high and noble and your work is hard and you do a good job, then whatever the task is in your life, it will benefit you.”

Ifs Hard Jobs Benefits Tasks Noble Karma Motive Good Job

Author:Frederick Lenz

“By practicing Buddhist Yoga, you can become happy, ecstatic and free in your current incarnation, even if you have never been that way before in any of your past lives.”

Ifs Way Past Yoga Currents Karma Buddhist Our Past Your Past Incarnation Ecstatic Past Life

Author:Frederick Lenz

“If you are not happier every day, if you don't see a progression of development, then you are certainly not practicing yoga or Buddhism and therefore you cannot be amassing any positive karma.”

Ifs Buddhism Development Yoga Karma Progression

Author:Frederick Lenz

“If you work an extra ten hours to help spread the dharma, this will cause for much faster progression. You're doing something for a higher cause, for a higher ideal.”

Ifs Helping Causes Hours Higher Ten Ideals Spread Karma Faster Extras Dharma Progression

Author:Frederick Lenz

“We don't really remember where we came from, and we're not too sure about where we go to, if we are, after this thing we call life.”

Ifs Remember Death Life Death Where We Came

Author:Frederick Lenz

“If you can die, you are confused because death is a perception of something ending and something else obviously beginning, which means we're still hung up on qualities.”

Ifs Mean Stills Death Dies Quality Perception Confused Hung

Author:Frederick Lenz

“If someone we love dies, normally the experience might create misery for the rest of your life. But the Kundalini can be released so we can see that there is no death, that the person has just gone on like we all must. We will be following them soon.”

Ifs Persons Might Death Dies Gone Misery Following Rest Of Your Life

Author:Frederick Lenz

“Since you're going to die anyway, why not go do whatever it is you are in the mood to do. To postpone anything is ridiculous, if it's important to you.”

Ifs Important Death Dies Ridiculous Mood Why Not

Author:Frederick Lenz

“If you meditate and continue to have fun with yoga and Buddhism, you will amass knowledge and will move to a higher incarnation. In your next lifetime you will be much wiser, much happier.”

Ifs Moving Next Fun Buddhism Higher Yoga Lifetime Having Fun Wiser Rebirth Incarnation Next Lifetime

Author:Frederick Lenz

“If you'd like to have a better incarnation, then have one now. If that's your attitude, just let go and meditate and try to be as wise and compassionate, as understanding as you can.”

Ifs Trying Understanding Attitude Wise Letting Go Compassionate Rebirth Incarnation Just Let Go

Author:Frederick Lenz

“No self-effort in the direction of enlightenment is ever wasted. Even if you don't become fully enlightened in a given lifetime, you will be much happier and more aware.”

Ifs Self Given Effort Enlightenment Lifetime Enlightened Rebirth

Author:Frederick Lenz

“If you feel some tremendous pressure to do everything perfectly so you won't have a horrible incarnation in your next life - that type of fear is unnecessary. Life is not that finicky.”

Ifs Feels Life Is Next Type Pressure Horrible Unnecessary Rebirth Incarnation Next Life

Author:Frederick Lenz

“A better lifetime comes from not some karmic scale but from inner knowledge. Inner knowledge makes you happy. In other words, it is not as if someone is checking!”

Ifs Lifetime Scales Rebirth Better Life Make You Happy

Author:Frederick Lenz

“I'm not big on the after-death experience. If you've done a very good job in your current lifetime, then your next lifetime will be set up for you.”

Ifs Done Bigs Jobs Next Lifetime Very Good Currents Good Job Rebirth After Death Next Lifetime

Author:Frederick Lenz

“Sometimes in an incarnation you get a feeling of frustration. It is not working out the way you want. If you pull your power together and meditate, no matter what happens to you physically, you will have gained from this life.”

Ifs Way Want Sometimes Matter Feelings Happens Together No Matter What Work Out This Life Frustration Rebirth Incarnation

Author:Frederick Lenz

“If one becomes enlightened, as I did in past incarnations, we leave the structural universes behind. We don't even have past incarnations because the form that had those incarnations has dissolved into the clear light of reality.”

Ifs Reality Light Past Form Universe Behinds Clear Enlightenment Enlightened Incarnation

Author:Frederick Lenz

About the Author

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

Related Topics

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

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Books & Sources

Surfing the Himalayas: conversations and travels with Master FwapRelated source material

Surfing the Himalayas: A Spiritual AdventureRelated source material

Snowboarding to Nirvana: A NovelRelated source material

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