Quotes About Zen

If you want to accord with the Tao, just do your job, then let go.

Zen teaching is like a window. At first, we look at it, and see only the dim reflection of our own face. But as we learn, and our vision becomes clear, the teaching becomes clear. Until at last it is perfectly transparent. We see through it. We see all things: our own face.

One evening, after a Dharma talk at the Cambridge Zen Center, a student asked Seung Sahn Soen-sa, "What is love?" Soen-sa said, "I ask you: what is love?" The student was silent. Soen-sa said, "This is love." The student was still silent. Soen-sa said, "You ask me: I ask you. This is love.

Motivation requires a calm, centered leader who is focused on one thing, and only one thing.

even refer to?

All we ever find is the arising and ceasing of the world as it has come to be now. When you snap your fingers, it's already gone. All that persists is thus. Thus is not an object of mind but Mind Itself.

You won't get Truth from the Buddha, or from a … Zen master … , or from a priest or monk or nun or teacher or guru. You won't receive Truth … from any other. (…) The only way to see Truth is by noticing if your mind is leaning.

The Zen master Seng-Ts'an was fond of saying "If you work on your mind with your mind, how can you avoid great confusion?

Within Zen one seeks nothing. You can gain no merit, no faith is required of you, no savior is necessary, there is no just reward, no choice in all things, nor is there any desire for attainment.

Pravé umÄ›ní", kÃ…â"¢i?el Mistr, "je bezú?elné, bezcílné!

So understood, the art of archery is rather like a preparatory school for Zen, for it enables the beginner to gain a clearer view, through the works of his own hands, of events which are not in themselves intelligible.

That's just the trouble, you make an effort to think about it. Concentrate entirely on your breathing, as if you had nothing else to do!" It took me a considerable time before I succeeded in doing what the Master wanted. But—I succeeded.

penetrating into the spirit of the Great Doctrine.

Study up on the Eastern religions. They're the only ones that are realistic. There's no answer, see.

Of all the religions, I am most partial to Buddhism.

The mind is a monkey, hopping around from thought to thought, image to image. Rarely do more than a few seconds go by in which the mind can remain single-pointed, empty.

The major contradiction in Suzuki's position, one of which he was acutely aware, is that he negated in actual practice what he advocated in theory, namely, that Zen "is a direct method, for it refuses to resort to verbal explanation or logical analysis, or to ritualism" (Ibid. 3:318).

With Suzuki, the commonsensical approach that would see Zen as a product of Japanese culture is inverted, and Japanese culture becomes a multifaceted expression of a unique phenomenon, or rather of a metaphysical principle named Zen.

Although some religious traditions may promote inner detachment vis-à-vis political systems, most religions tend to be politically conservative and nationalistic and Zen has been no exception in this regard.

If there is some truth in the Zen dictum that the finger pointing at the moon is not the moon, then it follows that the notion of pure experience is by no means the pure experience itself. Assuming that such an experience can be found, any attempt to characterize it, even the least reifying one, will betray it.

With [D. T.] Suzuki, Zen coopted the whole field of Japanese culture and, imposing on Japanese ideology the myth of transparency, claimed the status of a transcendental spirituality. With Nishida [Kitar?] and the Kyoto school, Zen acquired a crosscultural philosophical status. Thus, through the work of Suzuki, Nishida and their successors, a new field of discourse was created—one that differs markedly from the earlier Chan/Zen discourse (s) it claimed to replicate or interpret.

Let me give you a wonderful Zen practice. Wake up in the morning...look in the mirror, and laugh at yourself.

Zazen is the elimination of distance between subject and object.

Enjoyment is just the sound of being centered.