Quotessence
Home / Topics / Zen Quotes

Zen Quotes

Browse 1609 quotes about Zen.

Zen Quotes

“Be vulnerable! It is not someone else’s responsibility to break down your walls to get to you. It is your responsibility to let them in. This is crucial. Be more vulnerable with people in your life today. Know that being vulnerable is not a weakness – vulnerability means you are strong and secure enough within yourself to walk outside without your armor on.”

InspirationalWisdomTruthSpiritualGrowthRelationshipsConsciousnessPsychologyAcceptanceInner PeaceZenVulnerabilityPower Of WordsNew AgeNew ThoughtPower Of LoveStrength And Courage
Book:Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life
Create image

“Be YOU. There is nothing sexier than someone who is confident enough to be themselves, quirks and all. It is often your unique nature that separates you from the crowd in the best way possible for your romantic match to notice you.”

InspirationalWisdomSpiritualRomanceGrowthRelationshipsConsciousnessPsychologyAwarenessConfidenceSelf LoveInner PeaceZenUniqueness
Book:Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life
Create image

“Nearly all samurai practice Zen - it is the Way of Enlightenment." "Possibly the light of Zen is so strong that it has blinded me to its virtue." Yoshitoki smiled. "It is very good discipline for the mind, as the martial arts are for the body." Kenmotsu looked very smug as he said this. "I do Zazen twice a week." "I think it will do no-one any harm, though personally I find it more pleasant to think than to empty my mind of thought.”

MeditationBuddhismZenZazen
Book:The Samurai's Tale: A Historical Adventure for Kids (Ages 10-12) About a Boy's Journey to Warrior and a Redeemed Legacy
Create image

“We need to cease allowing the past to define us. We are evolving as a human race, and just because war and aggressive competition has always been a part of our heritage, that doesn’t mean we are forever destined to war and engage in aggressive competition. We are moving forward to a time when the heart will guide us. We once had to fight to survive, and some still do. Yet now it is time to lay down our weapons and open our hearts to the expansive potential of human compassion and creativity. Where our attention goes, energy flows. Do we continue to focus on opposition and give it our energy? Or do we begin to focus our energy on our own authentic freedom to shine and help to illuminate the world? The choice is ours. There are no mistakes – you are exactly where you need to be, and you were born with the precise gifts needed to transform a dying world into a thriving planet.”

InspirationalWarWisdomSpiritualGrowthChangeFreedomConsciousnessCompassionCreativityPsychologyCompetitionInner PeaceZenReleaseImpermanenceThrivingReleasing The PastRelearning
Book:Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life
Create image

“You integrate something by first of all accepting it. To resist any aspect of your past is to keep yourself fragmented, and to keep yourself fragmented is exactly what the built-in mechanisms of the negative beliefs in your unconscious mind are designed to do. To become whole within yourself, you must treat each and every experience that you have and ever will have as simply a stepping stone because there’s always a bigger picture. Something challenging may be happening to you right now, and you may have no conscious recognition or idea of why it’s happening, but let me assure you that you will know why one day. How many times have you said to yourself, “Wow, so that’s why it happened?” The issue isn’t really what’s going on in the present moment or what has happened back in the past, the issue is the way you’re defining or looking it…”

HappinessChallengesZenPresent MomentIntegrationExperiencesStepping StonesNonresistance
Book:The Labyrinth: Rewiring the Nodes in the Maze of your Mind
Create image

“Find and foster your Passions in life! People who are passionate about what they do are in alignment with Spirit and become magnetic to those around them. This also applies to those already in long-term relationships. How do you keep the love and intimacy alive? Keep your personal Passions alive and the rest will fall into place. We can’t share passions with others unless we first have it within ourselves.”

LoveInspirationalWisdomSpiritualSpiritPassionGrowthRelationshipsConsciousnessPsychologyInner PeaceZenIntimacyAlignmentMagnetismLong Term Relationships
Book:Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life
Create image

“Being the people we are, and feeling the way that we do, getting excited about going somewhere new can be terrifying. Of course it is, I get it! But if you don’t travel, you’ll regret it. Your soul will forever be empty.”

LifeSoulInspirationSpiritSpiritualitySelf HelpTravelMental HealthInner PeaceZenMental IllnessNewWanderlustGo
Book:From My Suffering: 25 Ways to Break the Chains of Anxiety, Depression & Stress
Create image

“To doubt the literal meaning of the words of Jesus or Moses incurs hostility from most people, but it’s just a fact that if Jesus or Moses were to appear today, unidentified, with the same message he spoke many years ago, his mental stability would be challenged. This isn’t because what Jesus or Moses said was untrue or because modern society is in error but simply because the route they chose to reveal to others has lost relevance and comprehensibility. "Heaven above" fades from meaning when space-age consciousness asks, Where is "above"? But the fact that the old routes have tended, because of language rigidity, to lose their everyday meaning and become almost closed doesn’t mean that the mountain is no longer there. It’s there and will be there as long as consciousness exists.”

PhilosophyLanguageWordsZenMeaning
Book:Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
Create image

“Your sweet-toting and sugarcoating is of no service to anyone! Do not sugarcoat reality; it only gives the people in your life a sweet-tooth that then makes it more challenging for them to later bite down on the hardness of life. Do not tote and tout sweets either – you’re malnourishing people! Instead give them the truth. What is the truth you may ask? Authentic expression of who you really are, how you really feel, without projecting the labels of right or wrong.”

LoveInspirationalWisdomTruthSpiritualGrowthConsciousnessPsychologyExpressionBalanceSelf ImprovementInner PeaceZenAuthenticitySweetnessAuthentic SelfAuthenticRight And WrongExpressing YourselfSugarcoating
Author:Alaric Hutchinson
Create image

“This is shaping up even worse than you anticipated. Still, you feel a measure of detachment, as if you had suffered everything already and this were just a flashback. You wish that you had paid more attention when a woman you met at Heartbreak told you about Zen meditation. Think of all of this as an illusion. She can't hurt you. Nothing can hurt the samurai wh enters combat fully resolved to die. You have already accepted the inevitability of termination, as they say. Still, you'd rather not have to sit through this.”

ZenSamuraiBeing FiredLosing A Job
Book:Bright Lights, Big City
Create image

“On my journey from the fantastical to the practical, spirituality has gone from being a mystical experience to something very ordinary and a daily experience. Many don’t want this, instead they prefer spiritual grandeur, and I believe that is what keeps enlightenment at bay. We want big revelations of complexity that validates our perceptions of the divine. What a let down it was to Moses when God spoke through a burning bush! But that is exactly the simplicity of it all. Our spiritual life is our ordinary life and it is very grounded in every day experience. For me, it is the daily practice of kindness, mindfulness, happiness, and peace.”

InspirationalGodWisdomMotivationalHappinessSpiritualSpiritualityJesusPeaceConsciousnessCompassionPracticeKindnessFantasyPsychologyGraceDivineBuddhismMindfulnessEmpathyEnlightenmentJesus ChristInner PeaceTheologyZenProphetDivinityMysticismSympathySelf DisciplineMonkMosesMysticBuddhaZen BuddhismTen CommandmentsArchetypesPractical Theology
Author:Alaric Hutchinson
Create image

“When engaging in simple everyday banter and communications, this rule of thumb can really help suppress a lot of our negative word ‘vomit’ since we often mindlessly chat about the things we don’t like. If we refrain from expressing our negative opinions about things unless they’re directly asked for, we can train ourselves to respond rather than react the second we see or hear something and then feel we must verbalize our views about it. Remember, even if we don’t agree with someone or something, we can still speak about the subject at hand in a positive light to encourage growth rather than guilty motivation. I like to say I express more “inspirations” than “opinions” with each passing day.”

InspirationalWisdomSpiritualGrowthConsciousnessPsychologyCommunicationMindfulnessInner PeaceZenNegativityOpinionsWords To Live ByMindfulness Practice
Book:Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life
Create image

“You don´t have to let it linger Within the palm of your hand, The tip's already in your finger: All beginning comes to an end.”

PhilosophyDreamHappinessZenHopelessnessDreams Come TrueMiraclesFacts Of LifeZen BuddhismDreams And RealityBeginnings And EndingsFinding Your WayHope And HealingSolution To ProblemsSolutions To Your ProblemsZensational LivingZen And The Art Of HappinessFinding AnswersFinding One S PathSolution OrientedBe In The MomentHolding On To PeopleHanding Situations
Book:A-Z of Happiness: Tips for Living and Breaking Through the Chain that Separates You from Getting That Dream Job
Create image