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Zen Buddhism Quotes

Browse 189 quotes about Zen Buddhism.

Zen Buddhism Quotes

“There were so many beliefs which we had about the world, which then influenced everything, everything, about how we saw the world and interacted in the world and were with others. Everything. It was profound to me, amazing, the ramifications, the implications, the far-reaching impact that one’s beliefs could have on the world. It was actually mind-blowing for me. Figuratively speaking. Like, it was just, holy shit. Look at that. And nobody, hardly anybody sees it. They’re just ideas. Ideas. And yet, I’d believed them for so long, and still, was still shirking free of them. How was it that we believed in them, so readily, so easily?”

TruthSpiritualityBuddhismEnlightenmentZenZen BuddhismLife TruthsLife S Greatest Answers
Book:All That Is Unspoken
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“Writing, I feel my way on instinct—always trying to find the beating heart of things. It’s a delicate procedure, and often the flashing firefly I catch at dusk turns out to just be a dark bug in the light of morning. Logic, apparently, is not enough. I am learning to trust my senses and allow the dancing of time to teach me what I need to know.”

WritingLife And LivingIntuitionZen Buddhism
Book:This Truth Never Fails: A Zen Memoir in Four Seasons
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“I see that this body—made of the four elements—is not really me, and I am not limited by this body. I am the whole of the river of life, of blood ancestors and spiritual ancestors, that has been continuously flowing for thousands of years and flows on for thousands of years into the future. I am one with my ancestors and my descendants. I am life manifesting in countless different forms. I am one with all people and all species, whether they are peaceful and joyful or suffering and afraid. At this very moment I am present everywhere in this world. I have been present in the past and will be there in the future. The disintegration of this body does not touch me, just as when the petals of the plum blossom fall it does not mean the end of the plum tree. I see that I am like a wave on the surface of the ocean. I see myself in all the other waves, and I see all the other waves in me. The manifestation or the disappearance of the wave does not lessen the presence of the ocean. My Dharma body and spiritual life are not subject to birth or death. I am able to see my presence before this body manifested and after this body disintegrates. I am able to see my presence outside this body, even in the present moment. Eighty or ninety years is not my life span. My life span, like that of a leaf or of a buddha, is immeasurable. I am able to go beyond the idea that I am a body separate from all other manifestations of life, in time and in space.”

LoveDeathExistenceLivingZen Buddhism
Book:The Art Of Living
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“Although wisdom is called immovable, this does not signify any insentient thing, like wood or stone; it moves as the mind is wont to move - forward or back, to the left, to the right, in the ten directions and to the eight points; and the mind that does not stop at all is called immovable wisdom.”

MindWisdomBuddhismWisdom QuotesZenBuddhistBuddhaZen BuddhismZen QuotesImmovable
Book:The unfettered mind: writings of the Zen master to the sword master
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“When you break something, is your first impulse to throw it away? Or do you repair it but feel a sadness because it is no longer "perfect"? Whatever the case, you might want to consider the way the Japanese treated the items used in their tea ceremony. Even though they were made from the simplest materials... these teacups and bowls were revered for their plain lines and spiritual qualities. There were treated with the utmost care, integrity and respect. For this reason, a cup from the tea ceremony was almost never broken. When an accident did occur and a cup was broken, there were certain instances in which the cup was repaired with gold. Rather than trying to restore it in a what they would cover the gace that it ahad been broken, the cracks were celebrated in a bold and spirited way. The thin paths of shining gold completely encircled the ceramic cup, announcing to the world that the cup was broken and repaired and vulnerable to change. And in this way, its value was even further enhanced.”

HomeCleaningZen Buddhism
Book:Sweeping Changes: Discovering the Joy of Zen in Everyday Tasks
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“If you don’t understand, please keep your mouth shut and just live with all sentient beings in peace and harmony beyond your intellectual speculation. It’s not necessary to think how much that helps people or how many people it helps. All you have to do is be peaceful with people right now, right here, day by day.”

PeaceCompassionHelping OthersPeacefulInclusionCommunionPeace On EarthZen BuddhismInclusivenessGenerosity Of Heart
Book:Each Moment Is the Universe: Zen and the Way of Being Time
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“If you try to examine your life analytically, asking yourself who you are, finally you will realize that there is something you cannot reach. You don’t know what it is, but you feel the presence of something you want to connect with. This is sometimes called the absolute. Buddha and Dogen Zenji say true self. Christians say God.”

SelfGodSpiritChristianityTrue SelfBuddhaZen BuddhismDogen
Book:Each Moment Is the Universe: Zen and the Way of Being Time
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“The function of a university is to teach a [person] how to drink tea, not because anything is important, but because it is usual to drink tea, or for that matter anything else under the sun. And whatever you do, every act, however small, can teach you everything, provided you see who is acting.” ― Thomas Merton, Thomas Merton On Prayer”

WisdomPrayerEducationLearningBuddhismInsightZen BuddhismThomas Merton
Book:Thomas Merton on Prayer
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“This place of stuck—“I have to” and “I can’t”—feels familiar from my spiritual work. We’re told to simply “let go”—but when we try to do this, we often seem to get more deeply tangled in the willful web of resistance. In spite of injunctions to the contrary, “letting go” doesn’t appear to be something we have conscious control over. Why can’t we just let go into the loving arms of the universe? What is this holding back that seems so essential—so imperative?”

MeditationLetting GoZen Buddhism
Book:This Truth Never Fails: A Zen Memoir in Four Seasons
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“Release seems to come only when we allow ourselves to be truly stuck—when we find ourselves all out of tricks and skillful means. As we allow ourselves to surrender to the prosaic and the holy in the particular form of this moment, we open ourselves to the grace of letting things be—the grace that functions effortlessly and is, indeed, the very fabric of our life.”

GraceMeditationLetting GoZen Buddhism
Book:This Truth Never Fails: A Zen Memoir in Four Seasons
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“Try if you wish. But Zen comes of itself. True Zen shows in everyday living, CONSCIOUSNESS in action. More than any limited awareness, it opens every inner door to our infinite nature. Instantly mind frees. How it frees! False Zen wracks brains as a fiction concocted by priests and salesmen to peddle their own wares. Look at it this way, inside out and inside in: CONSCIOUSNESS everywhere, inclusive, through you. Then you can't help living humbly in wonder.”

PhilosophyWisdomSpiritualityZenZen BuddhismZen Quotes
Book:Zen Flesh Zen Bones
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“For Zen Buddhism, historical narratives do matter; stories of the "transmission of the lamp" of the awakened mind down through the ages constitute the narrative thread that holds the history of Zen together, supporting the continuity and authority of its institutional tradition. But what matters most to many sincere Zen practitioners, especially today, is how the teachings and practices embedded in those stories can illuminate and change our lives-not when, where, and by whom they were first taught and written down.”

Zen BuddhismTransmission
Book:Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism
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“If he hadn’t become a Buddhist monk, Sawaki Roshi would have been successful in a worldly sense in business, politics, or the military. Instead, he devoted his life to wholeheartedly practicing Dogen Zenji’s just sitting, or shikantaza, which according to him was good for nothing. For him, social climbing in pursuit of fame and profit was meaningless. The Japanese expression for “waste” is bonifuru, which means “sacrifice,” “lose all,” or “ruin.” So when we say he wasted his life, we use the expression in a paradoxical way—like saying that zazen is good for nothing.”

MeditationZen BuddhismZazenContemplative PrayerShikantaza
Book:The Zen Teaching of Homeless Kodo
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“There is no clump called “I” moving from this spot to that spot, instant by instant. Rather, through particular encounters with particular people, within each encounter, within each transition, something called “I” makes its appearance. Thus it is that what seems to be an object outside yourself is, in reality, your complement, that which gives this instant of your life its glow.”

CommunityBuddhismEqualityOnenessIndividualismWorld PeaceZen BuddhismPluralismUniversalismUnicity
Book:Novice to Master: An Ongoing Lesson in the Extent of My Own Stupidity
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“[B]lossom anew every day. ... A practitioner, like the water, should continue to flow endlessly toward the great sea. Today’s flower is not the same as the one that blossomed yesterday. And a practitioner, like a flower, should blossom anew every day.”

BuddhismTransformationSpiritual GrowthZen BuddhismSpiritual RenewalKorean BuddhismMindfulnesss
Book:The Sound of Water, The Sound of Wind: And Other Early Works by a Korean Monk
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“Once at a workshop, the instruction was to walk mindfully over to the lunchtime food across the room. In that short walk across the room, I noticed how automatically I get ahead of myself—how I lose track of these miraculous feet on the ground and miss the space in between. And I’m beginning to suspect that most of life is “in between.”

MindfulnessZen BuddhismWalking Meditation
Book:This Truth Never Fails: A Zen Memoir in Four Seasons
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“It is my prayer that nations will no longer send their young people to fight each other, not even in the name of peace. I do not accept the concept of war for peace, nor of a 'just war,' in the same way that I cannot accept the concepts of 'just slavery,,' 'just hatred, or 'just racism.”

WarPeaceBuddhismRacismEqualityZenWorld PeaceZen Buddhism
Book:At Home in the World: Stories and Essential Teachings from a Monk's Life
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“Zen purposes to discipline the mind itself, to make it its own master, through an insight into its proper nature. This getting into the real nature of one's own mind or soul is the fundamental object of Zen Buddhism. Zen, therefore, is more than meditation and Dhyana in its ordinary sense. The discipline of Zen consists in opening the mental eye in order to look into the very reason of existence.”

MindLooksRealSoulReasonEyePurposeOrderNatureExistenceMeditationObjectsMastersBuddhismDisciplineOrdinaryFundamentalsInsightOpeningZen BuddhismDhyana
Book:An Introduction to Zen Buddhism
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“Concentrate the mind on the present moment.”

LifeMindMomentsPastBuddhismEnlightenmentBuddhistThis LifeLive LifeEaseEnlightenedPresent MomentThat MomentLife LessonLive In The MomentHere And NowLive In The PresentShort LifeLive WellZen BuddhismPast And PresentPeace And HappinessPresent TimePast PresentMindful LivingSpiritual AwarenessHealthy MindLive In The NowPresent FutureFuture And PresentLife DreamPresent LifeWise BuddhistLive Your Life To The FullestMoments Of HappinessDeep LifeInspirational BuddhistLive Life Happy InspirationalDaily BuddhistMind And MatterBuddhism HappinessBuddhist LifeSpiritual EnlightenmentLove Life InspirationalLove Life HappinessZen BuddhistLive Every MomentBeing Yourself And HappyBuddhist PhilosophyDwell On The PastShort Motivational LifeAppropriate BehaviorLeave The Past Behind
Author:Gautama Buddha
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