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Zen Quotes

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Zen Quotes

“Your life is like a TV serial. You are the watcher, the audience. Producer of this TV serial is Maya (Interplay of Time and Space). You say to the producer, “I am very angry at this and this villain.” The producer’s purpose is to invoke emotions in audience and make money. If you are angry, it’s good for producer. More you get angry at characters, more their screentime will be increased in next episode. When they stop invoking any emotion in you, only then they will be thrown out of the TV serial.”

SpiritualityBuddhismMindfulnessAngerZenLet Go
Author:Shunya
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“This universe is like a company. Being detached doesn’t mean quitting the job. It means being at a position where you do your job and the entire universe seems to be helping you in your job. It doesn’t mean being the CEO or a king. You can have any role and still be in that position. A detached farmer does his job and the entire universe, including the king and the clouds, seem to be working for him and helping him in his job. On the other hand, for an attached king, even his family members work against him.”

UniverseAwarenessBuddhismZenOnenessHinduismDetachmentNo Thought
Author:Shunya
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“When was the last time you noticed the beauty of a cool breeze or the wonder of a starry sky or the vibrancy of a wild flower on the roadside? I used to have the ability to instantly appreciate the beauty of all these when I was a child, but by the time I was twenty it was almost lost. (It took a lot of Zen practice for me to regain it.) The world has not changed that much; there are still summer breezes, night skies, and wild flowers. But where has the perception gone?”

Zen
Book:The Zen Teachings of Jesus
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“In the Parable of the Great Banquet, many of those who failed to share the joy of the feast were ordinary people who were simply too busy with their future-oriented life. As the invitation came, they ignored it and went off to tend their everyday business. Like most people, they felt that it is more important to make a living than to go to a feast and make merry. In a word, they are too "serious.”

Zen
Book:The Zen Teachings of Jesus
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“[O]ur existential anxiety originates not from the objective state of reality but from our inflated expectations. The main problem is the discrepancy between our belief that we can handle everything by ourselves and the fact that, as mortals, we have several limitations. Unaware of this, we try to do the impossible: to control the uncontrollable, to predict the unpredictable, to hold on to the impermanent, and to secure the unsecurable. This illusion of omnipotence becomes our torture.”

Zen
Book:The Zen Teachings of Jesus
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“This is self-abandonment: to live in the moment, not feeling the pressure to achieve something, not thinking about winning or losing, not worrying about acting foolish, breaking away from the neurosis of restraint or defense, enjoying the beauty of the moment yet not holding on to it, letting go without thinking about the need to let go, feeling the happiness without hoping for the happiness to continue, having no ego or attachment to anything. It is not work but pure play. It is not a matter of striving but wu-wei. It is not something planned for but a spontaneous event.”

Zen
Book:The Zen Teachings of Jesus
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“Imagine you are passing by a roadside gambling stall. There is an operator surrounded by some audience members who are gambling their money and winning. You get interested and place your bet. You lose your money. Later you realize that the operator and the audience were all part of the same gang. Give it a thought: Maybe the things you like and things you dislike are part of the same conspiracy? They are just putting on a show to keep you engaged. You are the only real audience of this show.”

SpiritualityZenHinduismAdvaitaDualityVedanta
Author:Shunya
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“Every thought is a concept that divides reality in some way, and therefore is a mental abstraction that distorts the truth of what is. This is not to say that all thoughts are useless, though many of them seem to be, but it is clear that by being so consumed by this continuous stream of thoughts, we become disconnected from the reality of life that exists beyond our thinking minds.”

MindSpiritualityConsciousnessMeditationAwarenessPerceptionMindfulnessThoughtsAwakeningZen
Book:Awake to What Is: Discovering Peace in the Present Moment
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“If we can understand that all thought is based on memory, that it is conditioned by the past, then we can see that it is of no use in helping us understand the true reality of the present moment, for every thought we have about reality will only distort reality according to our conditioned way of thinking.”

MindSpiritualityConsciousnessMeditationAwarenessPerceptionMindfulnessThoughtsAwakeningZen
Book:Awake to What Is: Discovering Peace in the Present Moment
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“When I think about something that is happening in the moment, I am introducing my accumulation of the past into the immediate experience of the present. I am evaluating the situation based on my conditioned perspective, and projecting my internal workings onto the unconditioned reality of the present moment.”

MindSpiritualityConsciousnessMeditationAwarenessPerceptionMindfulnessThoughtsAwakeningZen
Book:Awake to What Is: Discovering Peace in the Present Moment
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“When we are not awake to reality, we are living in the dream of the mind. When we are in the dream state, we do not know what we are doing, and are unaware of what is happening within and around us. We are simply acting out of deep programming, behaving according to conditioned patterns, living as if on auto-pilot.”

MindSpiritualityConsciousnessMeditationAwarenessPerceptionMindfulnessThoughtsAwakeningZen
Book:Awake to What Is: Discovering Peace in the Present Moment
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“There are many ways that the dream state operates, but it is primarily characterized by a lack of awareness to what is actually happening in the present moment, and the consequent dwelling in the mind and its endless thinking, reacting and behaving from unconscious conditioning and programming.”

MindSpiritualityConsciousnessMeditationAwarenessPerceptionMindfulnessThoughtsAwakeningZen
Book:Awake to What Is: Discovering Peace in the Present Moment
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“The ego is not who we are, it is who we think we are. When we think of our name, our image, our history, and our life experiences as who we are, we become associated with an idea of ourselves, a mental image that is not at all who we are in reality.”

MindSpiritualityConsciousnessMeditationAwarenessPerceptionMindfulnessThoughtsAwakeningZen
Book:Awake to What Is: Discovering Peace in the Present Moment
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“We all have an image of who we are, how we think of ourselves, and how we think others perceive us, but obviously this image is not really who we are; it is just a projection of the mind. When we mistake this illusory entity of thought to be who we actually are we do all kinds of strange and unnecessary things to maintain it and improve it. We feel the need to always state our point of view, push our beliefs onto others, tell them about our experiences, tell them who we are, what we like, what we dislike, and so on…always focused on “me.”

MindSpiritualityConsciousnessMeditationAwarenessPerceptionMindfulnessThoughtsAwakeningZen
Book:Awake to What Is: Discovering Peace in the Present Moment
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