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Zen Quotes

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Zen Quotes

“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.”

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Book:Zen Flesh Zen Bones
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“The idea of Zen is to catch life as it flows. There is nothing extraordinary or mysterious about Zen. I raise my hand ; I take a book from the other side of the desk ; I hear the boys playing ball outside my window; I see the clouds blown away beyond the neighbouring wood: — in all these I am practising Zen, I am living Zen. No wordy discussions is necessary, nor any explanation. I do not know why — and there is no need of explaining, but when the sun rises the whole world dances with joy and everybody’s heart is filled with bliss. If Zen is at all conceivable, it must be taken hold of here.”

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Book:An Introduction to Zen Buddhism
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“The problem with all students, he said, is that they inevitably stop somewhere. They hear an idea and they hold on to it until it becomes dead; they want to flatter themselves that they know the truth. But true Zen never stops, never congeals into such truths. That is why everyone must constantly be pushed to the abyss, starting over and feeling their utter worthlessness as a student. Without suffering and doubts, the mind will come to rest on clichés and stay there, until the spirit dies as well. Not even enlightenment is enough. You must continually start over and challenge yourself.”

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Book:Mastery
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“How simple it is to acknowledge that all the worry in the world could not control the future. How simple it is to see that we can only be happy now, and that there will never be a time when it is not now.”

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Book:Jonathan Harnisch: An Alibiography
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“Nirvana isn’t merchandise for sale. Any religion can sell a paradise, a pure land, or nirvāṇa. But is nirvāṇa a product that the Buddha and ancestral teachers want to sell us? Is it a promised land or paradise up in the sky, which people try to sell us saying: “If you follow our religion, if you become a member of our congregation, then after you die you will have nirvāṇa or the Kingdom of Heaven”? We can see clearly that it is not.”

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Book:Enjoying the Ultimate: Commentary on the Nirvana Chapter of the Chinese Dharmapada
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“The Buddha challenged the idea of an immutable soul. He said nothing about the mutable soul, and its survival, though his successors in most streams of Buddhism have had a lot to say on this subject. For all their words, the question of what happens when one dies remains a mystery.”

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Book:Encouraging Words: Zen Buddhist Teachings for Western Students
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“Truth falls from the heavens like rain, gently carving many channels in the earth. Your truth may be different from my own, yet both are still true.”

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Book:Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life
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“This is always and inevitably the case. No one gets away with murder. No one gets away with anything. You can't escape the consequences of your immoral acts any more than someone who drops a big-ass amp directly on his foot can escape having broken toe-bones. Your life and the life of everyone else in the universe are one seamless whole. To cause another living being pain isn't evil-it's just stupid. Because that being is you.”

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Book:Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies and the Truth About Reality
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“A great tree develops over time and can tell stories not only those of happiness, but also those that contain pain from what it has seen over the years, and as a result is the wise ancient tree that it is today. As the seasons change, the tree naturally goes through changes as well: where the leaves turn yellow and orange in the fall, falling by the Winter, returning in the Spring, and with full set of new leafs by the Summer. Love is no different in that there will be times when we are fully naked in the Winter, and left to wonder about Spring when it seemed so easy to love, yet the wise tree knows that no winter will last forever no matter how cold it may be.”

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Book:Purple Buddha Project: Purple Book of Self-Love
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“Some we proudly display on our arms, while others we shyly conceal. Tattoo the moments of sorrow as well as the moments of splendor and beauty. Tattoo in an acknowledgment and tribute to home, and tattooing your beliefs that define who you are. Whether we intended to or not, every moment of our lives are tattooed to our heart.”

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Book:Purple Buddha Project: Purple Book of Self-Love
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“What happens to the drop of wine That you pour into the sea? Does it remain itself, unchanged? It is as if it never existed. So it is with the soul: Love drinks it in, It is united with Truth, Its old nature fades away, It is no longer master of itself. The soul wills and yet does not will: Its will belongs to Another. It has eyes only for this beauty; It no longer seeks to possess, as was its wont-- It lacks the strength to possess such sweetness. The base of this highest of peaks Is founded on nichil, Shaped nothingness, made one with the Lord.”

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Book:The God-Madness
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“The original mind already contains all wisdom and all virtuous qualities in their completeness. Therefore, it cannot properly be said that one has newly awakened or newly come to know something. If one must put it into words, the closest expression would be that it has been restored.”

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Book:AI Sage: Meditation Teaching Method to Personify a Non-Sentient Al as an Awakened Being
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“To practice is not to practice for ourselves alone. We practice for everyone. We should be proud to say, Violence, it may come from somewhere else, but not from me. Hatred, discrimination, it may come from somewhere else, but not from me.”

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Book:The Ultimate Dimension : An Advanced Dharma Retreat on the Avatamsaka and Lotus Sutras
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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.”

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Book:At Home in the World: Stories and Essential Teachings from a Monk's Life
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