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Zen Quotes

Browse 1609 quotes about Zen.

Zen Quotes

“Zen is to eat, breathe, cook, carry water, and scrub the toilet, to infuse every act of body, speech, and mind with mindfulness, to illuminate every leaf and pebble, every heap of garbage, every path that leads to our mind’s return home. Only a person who has grasped the art of cooking, washing dishes, sweeping, and chopping wood, someone who is able to laugh at the world’s weapons of money, fame, and power, can hope to descend the mountain as a hero.”

BuddhismMindfulnessZenZen BuddhismThich Nhat Hanh
Book:Fragrant Palm Leaves: Journals, 1962-1966
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“We’re conditioned to seek only gain, to be happy, and to try to satisfy all our desires, he (Jakusho Kwong) explains. But even though we may understand on some level that loss is a catalyst for growth, most people still believe it to be the opposite of gain and to be avoided at all costs. If I’ve learned anything in my years of practicing Zen and coaching basketball, it’s that what we resist persists.”

BasketballZen
Book:Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success
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“Zen teacher Jakusho Kwong suggests becoming “an active participant in loss.” We’re conditioned to seek only gain, to be happy, and to try to satisfy all our desires, he explains. But even though we may understand on some level that loss is a catalyst for growth, most people still believe it to be the opposite of gain and to be avoided at all costs. If I’ve learned anything in my years of practicing Zen and coaching basketball, it’s that what we resist persists.”

Zen
Author:Phil Jackson
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“Student: Master, the path I follow seems to never want me, it always gives me terrible difficulties! Master: The path you followed has detected a lack of willpower and determination in you! Just like when you are afraid of a dog, the dog attacks you, the road also attacks you! Completing the path depends on you, not on the path!”

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Author:Mehmet Murat Ildan
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“During my time here, I learnt that one could not escape the secular world anymore than one could escape the web of karma that one had sown. True enlightenment comes not from isolation but immersion. The monks in the temples never really abandoned the world. Their doors were always open, and they took up arms when necessary as they had demonstrated countless times before. Their severance with attachment was to connect them with greater compassion, a higher love.”

LoveInspirationCompassionKindnessBuddhismZenGenerosityTao
Book:Snow at Heaven's Edge: A Tale from the Carefree Swordsman Saga
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“Disciple: Master, what will this temple give me? Master: This temple will not give you anything! Disciple: But I came here to take something! Master: There is nothing for you to take here; everything is within you, we will help you to take something from within yourself, that's all! Disciple: What if there is nothing within me, Master? Master: Then you will get nothing!”

Mehmet Murat Ildan QuotesZenZen StoriesZen StoryZen QuotesZen Quotations
Author:Mehmet Murat Ildan
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“In 1963, I was sitting with a number of my students on the campus of Columbia University in New York. The morning was beautiful, the sun was shining, and we were talking to each other about the Buddhist practice of removing concepts. Suddenly someone passing by stopped and looking at me for a few seconds, and then he asked, "Are you a Buddhist?" I looked up and said, "No." Did I tell a lie? I hope that my students understood me at that moment. If I had said, "Yes, I am a Buddhist," then he would still be caught in his idea of what a Buddhist is, and that would not help him. So "No" was more helpful than "Yes." That is the language of Zen. When you do say or do something, it is to help undo the knots in people's minds, and not to bind them anymore. That is why the language we use should aim at liberation.”

LanguageZenLiberation
Book:Peace Begins Here: Palestinians and Israelis Listening to Each Other
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“We should live every day like people who have just been rescued from dying on the moon. We are on Earth now, and we need to enjoy walking on this precious, beautiful planet. Zen Master Linji said, “The miracle is not to walk on water or fire. The miracle is to walk on the earth.”

LifeConsciousnessBuddhismGratitudeMindfulnessMiracleZenEveryday Life
Book:Fear: Essential Wisdom for Getting Through the Storm
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“It is taught that all buddhas in the past, present, and future leave the household and attain the way. The twenty-eight ancestors in India and the six early ancestors in China who transmitted the Buddha's mind seal were all monks. They are distinguished in the three realms by strictly observing the precepts. Thus precepts are primary for practicing Zen in pursuit of the way. How can one become a buddha ancestor without becoming free from faults and preventing wrongdoing?”

ZenPrecepts
Book:The Essential Dogen: Writings of the Great Zen Master
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“Student: Master, you told me that when you look outside, sometimes you see outside, sometimes you see inside! I thought about this a lot but I didn't understand anything! Master: If you have problems in your mind when you look outside, you will see your own problems, your own inside, not outside! The outer world truly appears before you only when your inner world is at peace!”

Mehmet Murat Ildan QuotesZenInsideOutsideZen StoriesZen StoryInner Peace Quotes
Author:Mehmet Murat Ildan
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“Zen funeral rites typify both the promise of universal salvation characteristic of Japanese Buddhism and the dominance of funeral services in the activities of Japanese Buddhist temples. In fact, Japanese Buddhist funerals—the single most important Buddhist ritual still observed by the vast majority of Japanese—largely derives from rites that were introduced and popularized first by Zen monks.”

ZenFuneral RitesJapanese Buddhism
Book:Sōtō Zen in Medieval Japan
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“Prior to the beginning of the Shōwa period (1926–1989), few people visited the rock garden at Ryōanji, and within Japan itself, aside from a few professionals, there were not very many people who said it was particularly beautiful. Moreover, praise from foreigners did not come to be dominant until after the Zen boom in Europe and the United States started in the 1950s. As a Japanese, it is somewhat gratifying to know that Japan has a garden that foreigners praise and travel all the way across the ocean to visit. But this, again, is just a magic mirror that reflects a beautiful image of me.”

ZenRyoanji
Book:Shots in the Dark: Japan, Zen, and the West
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“Cuando era un joven monje ponía todo mi empeño en alcanzar el satori. Fueoka Ryoun roshi me dio una lección para toda la vida: “No hay razón para ponerse nervioso, Kodo. Te comportas como alguien a quien le cuelga de la nariz un resto de mierda y se pregunta: '¿quién se ha tirado un pedo?' Mientras busques de esta manera nunca encontrarás nada”.”

ZenZen BuddhismSoto Zen
Book:El Zen es la mayor patraña de todos los tiempos
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“At that moment he happily became the ‘walking crazy’: those who are conscious of the fact that they have lost their sanity, and that in losing their sanity, they have reached a higher level of existence. And as the walking crazy, the young man closed his eyes and fell deeply within, finding there not darkness but other worlds, complete other spaces where he was free from all physical pain and struggle.”

FreedomCrazyEnlightenmentZenInsaneDreamerLucid DreamingSatoriThe Art Of DreamingWalking Crazy
Book:The Art of Transmutation
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“Student: Master, can a meteorite fall on our head while we are walking? Master: Yes, it can fall! Student: What precautions can we take against this? Master: Try to strengthen your head! Student: But I want a realistic measure that works! Master: Then let me tell you something realistic: There is no possibility of a meteorite falling on your head, because nothing can fall on something that does not exist!”

Mehmet Murat Ildan QuotesZenZen MasterZen StoryMeteoritesZen Masters
Author:Mehmet Murat Ildan
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“When a scientist works in his laboratory, he does not smoke, he does not eat sweets, and does not listen to the radio. He abstains not because he thinks that these things are sins, but because he knows that they impede the perfect concentration of his mind on the object of his study. It is much the same in Zen Discipline: the observance of this discipline must help the practitioner to live in Awareness of Being; it does not lead to moral objectives.”

DisciplineZen
Book:Zen Keys: A Guide to Zen Practice
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“In my monastery, as in all those belonging to the Zen tradition, there is a very fine portrait of Bodhidharma. It is a Chinese work of art in ink, depicting the Indian monk with sober and vigorous features. The eyebrows, eyes, and chin of Bodhidharma express an invincible spirit. Bodhidharma lived, it is said, in the fifth century A.D. He is considered to be the First Patriarch of Zen Buddhism in China. It might be that most of the things that are reported about his life have no historical validity; but the personality as well as the mind of this monk, as seen and described through tradition, have made him the ideal man for all those who aspire to Zen enlightenment. It is the picture of a man who has come to perfect mastery of himself, to complete freedom in relation to himself and to his surroundings—a man having that tremendous spiritual power which allows him to regard happiness, unhappiness, and all the vicissitudes of life with an absolute calm. The essence of this personality, however, does not come from a position taken about the problem of absolute reality, nor from an indomitable will, but from a profound vision of his own mind and of living reality. The Zen word used here signifies "seeing into his own nature." When one has reached this enlightenment, one feels all systems of erroneous thought crushed inside oneself. The new vision produces in the one enlightened a deep peace, a great tranquility, as well as a spiritual force characterized by the absence of fear. Seeing into one's own nature is the goal of Zen.”

ZenBodhidharma
Book:Zen Keys: A Guide to Zen Practice
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