Quotes About Monks

The three great goals of pilgrimage were Rome, Jerusalem, and Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain. Along the route to the shrine of Saint James at Santiago, the Cluniac monks had organized hostels, a day's journey apart, complete with barbers and cobblers.

SUFISM is not different from the mysticism of all religions. Mysticism comes from Adam (God's Peace upon him). It has assumed different shapes and forms over many centuries, for example, the mysticism of Jesus (God's Peace upon him), of monks, of hermits, and of Muhammed (God's Peace and Blessings upon him). A river passes through many countries and each claims it for its own. But there is only one river.

When we were seated, they brought us beer, made with hops, called here "Tchang" and brewed in the cloister. It has a tendency to rapidly produce embonpoint upon the monks, which is regarded as a sign of the particular favor of Heaven.

Bandit monks and mafiosi monks were nothing new to the long-suffering inhabitants of rural Sicily.

All the art of the old Japanese painters (who in almost all periods were monks) is explained if it is understood that, for them, the visible world was a perpetual allusion to Wisdom, like that great tree which, with unutterable majesty, says No to evil for us' (ibid.).

In disciplining ourselves to practice Zen in movement, we never cease to become mu with all our might or count the frequency of our respiration at all times and in all places just as we do when we are in meditation. Therefore, it is our ideal to train ourselves to attain immovability in movement. As I have been saying, however, even professional Zen monks cannot always practice Zen in movement except those endowed with the greatest capacities.

a wild and dangerous place where brigandage and battle were inextricably woven into a unique culture of warriors and monks. Decapitated heads ornamented the trees and gateposts. Severed hands festooned the government buildings. The Chinese and Tibetans skinned men alive, chopped them into chunks, and boiled them to death in giant cauldrons.1