Top 637 Zen Quotes & Sayings - Page 6
Explore popular Zen quotes.
Last updated on December 23, 2024.
Zen is the only religion in the world that teaches sudden enlightenment. It says that enlightenment takes no time, it can happen in a single, split second.
In the Zen of sports and athletics, we seek to bring discipline and control into our physical movements, but at the same time to eliminate the self that gets in the way of perfect play.
Zen people love Buddha so tremendously that they can even play jokes upon him. It is out of great love; they are not afraid.
Zen teaches that once we can open up to the inevitability of our demise, we can begin to transform that situation and lighten up about it.
Tantric Zen is for the individual who is in love with both the finite and the infinite, who gets a kick out of this weird transitory world and at the same time, wants to step beyond it.
Not to be bound by rules, but to be creating one's own rules-this is the kind of life which Zen is trying to have us live.
If you were just you, you would be happy. But of course, you don't know who or what you are. So how can you possibly be happy? That is why you have got to study Zen...or something.
The emphasis is on meditation in Tantric Zen. The experience of meditation in formal practice, zazen, where you're sitting down and meditating and concentrating.
I have developed a Zen-like approach to the operating systems that people use: 'When you're ready, the right operating system will appear in your life.'
There are things that I value now that I didn't when I first went over there, like Zen Buddhism, which has become part of my life over the last couple years.
When you visit the Zen Monasteries, one of the first things required is that you bring a donation. They have to pay for those monasteries. The upkeep is fantastic. The monks have to be fed, and so on.
A person who undertakes the study of Zen and learns concentration and meditation is like a gymnast. You become a gymnast of the mind.
It is hard to produce work in New York. You kind of have to center yourself - do some Zen meditation exercises and just focus. It is very distracting, and money, of course, is an issue.
The Zen philosophy posits that 'human beings suffer' and 'the cause of suffering is desire.' The way to put an end to suffering is to stop wanting everything, all the time.
Both light and dark are eternity. Human beings assign relative values to colors, but beyond the relative, there just is - what in Zen we call "suchness".
To practice Zen means to realize one's existence in the beauty and clarity of this present moment, rather than letting life unravel in useless daydreaming of the past and future.
So I'm skeptical and cynical about the whole thing and it's only if something seems to be genuine that I would pursue it. That's why I've stuck with Zen for so long and not gone on to some other path with it.
Whether you are a genius or an idiot, a thief or, like me, a Zen priest who has cultivated the mind for 30 years - the mind anyway is subject to conditions.
The Japanese have become so smitten with the Western condiment - its texture as silky as a kimono, its tang as understated as the tang of Zen - that today they have a word for mayonnaise junkie: mayora.
Psychoanalysis and Zen, in my private psychic geometry, are equal to nicotine. They are anti-existential. Nicotine quarantines one out of existence.
But for the first time, I had a religious identity. I had come home. And so I called myself a Zen Buddhist at the age of 18.
There are few times that I feel more at peace, more in tune, more Zen, if you will, than when I force myself to unplug.
According to Zen philosophy each human being has two minds, a finite mind and an infinite mind.
Zen pretty much comes down to three things -- everything changes; everything is connected; pay attention.
Zen is all-inclusive. It never denies, it never says no to anything; it accepts everything and transforms it into a higher reality.
I'm very much a homebody so once I have my home set up how I want it, that's my zen, my comfy little nest where I drink my wine and watch my Netflix.
Zen is not, in my view, philosophy or mysticism. It is simply a practice of readjustment of nervous activity. That is, it restores the distorted nervous system to its normal functioning.
Zen martini: A martini with no vermouth at all. And no gin, either.
The word impossible contains the word possible' What's that-- some Zen thing?' I think Star Trek. Mr. Spock.
Forever is not an idea or a concept, it is reality. All of the things here come from forever. We call forever nirvana in Zen.
I am not a big technology person. I don't go on the Internet really much at all. Drawing is like a zen thing; it's private, which in this day and age is harder to come by.
Zen cuts straight through the Quidditch match in progress and almost gets taken down by a Beater hurling a Nerf quaffle right at his machopartes.
Just so we're clear, I'm not zen by any stretch of the imagination. However, what I've read about change being the only constant is a concept that I can grab onto and have used quite a lot.
'Castles Made of Sand' was a song that my parents put me to sleep to, so naturally, it still puts me in a zen state.
Work in a place that feels good to you. Select the best of that which is available. The Zen of working is just to do it, not to worry about it. Feel you would be doing it without the money.
Those who are already adept at some disciplines of the body will find that the study of Zen and meditation will give you much more control than you now have.
In Zen we study the will. We learn how to cultivate it, to accumulate will. We use it to direct our actions, and we don't overuse it or abuse it - that's a waste.
You grow, learn, and the more I can sit in silence and be comfortable with myself, the more I can make noise, as ironic and Zen Buddhist and satanic as it sounds!
Sports and athletics can be a path in Zen, in concordance with daily practice of zazen meditation. You need to move with your spirit, not just with your body.
This particular school of Zen has always considered itself the Marines of the spiritual world, so it has a kind of bias against conceptual thinking in favor of a very rigorous physical life.
I don't try to define the cosmos, I know it's unknowable, but I can understand my place in the world and my place in the universe through a mixture of Taoism, Catholicism, Zen or whatever I have at hand.
If you want to travel the Way of Buddhas and Zen masters, then expect nothing, seek nothing, and grasp nothing.
If you are around a lot of human beings who are filled with jealousy and anger and rage and desire, it filters into the mind. Zen is writing a new program to run in the mind.
Zen masters say you cannot see your reflection in running water, only in still water.
Tantric Zen is not being kinky; nor is it being conservative and austere. It is eclectic. It is a real mixture of all things.
Logic presumes a separation of subject from object; therefore logic is not final wisdom.This is Zen. This is my motorcycle maintenance.
When you've done the technical part, you're then into the joy, the zen, into being. Technology no longer exists for you. You're then into the mystery of the thing you're doing.
Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi or zen. Not any religion or cultural system. I am not of the East, nor of the West....
My place is placeless, a trace of the traceless.
Think of Zen, of the Void, of Good and Evil and you are bound hand and foot. Think only and entirely and completely of what you are doing at the moment and you are free as a bird.
In Zen we do everything perfectly. We feel that our outer actions are a reflection of our inner state. We call it mindfulness.
Among the most remarkable features characterizing Zen we find these: spirituality, directness of expression, disregard of form or conventionalism, and frequently an almost wanton delight in going astray from respectability.
If you look at the world today, there are as many solutions as there are problems. I think that is a big part of creativity. That's why I started Urban Zen. Because I wanted to dress and address people.
For me, whenever I'm physical it spins my mind and whenever there's a lot going on I put my gloves on or I wrestle somebody and I feel zen.
Harmonizing opposites by going back to their source is the distinctive quality of the Zen attitude, the Middle Way: embracing contradictions, making a synthesis of them, achieving balance.
I think any spiritual experience that's worthwhile is not about ego and it will humble you in some way. And also, a Zen monk once said to me, 'If you're not laughing, then you're not getting it.'
I've been studying the cultures of Asia for many years, and I'm very attracted to the culture of Japan, in particular to the impact Zen has had on the Japanese mind and spirit.
Zen is a study. It's a discipline. It involves the active use of will to make things happen or not happen. These are the secrets of power.
The truth of Zen, just a little bit of it, is what turns one's humdrum life, a life of monotonous, uninspiring commonplaceness, into one of art, full of genuine inner creativity.
I was very attracted to the way that Zen did not go into the imagination land. And now I've forgotten what your first question was and how we were going to tie this together.
I have developed a Zen-like approach to the operating systems that people use: 'When you're ready, the right operating system will appear in your life.