Quotes About Zen

I keep driving, slowly, hoping I'll remember where I'm going before I get there. So far I always have. Zen

Just the perfect peace of nothingness. That's what I believed.

By all means, avoid words—threats, complaints, justification, narratives, reframing, attempts to win arguments, supplications; avoid words!

The best way to think is not at all

That's essentially what Zen practice is about: functioning from moment to moment.

Living Zen is nothing special: life as it is. Zen is life itself, nothing added.

When we discover Zen practice, we may hold out a hope that it is going to solve our problems and make our life perfect. But Zen practice simply returns us to life as it is. Being our lives more and more is what Zen practice is about. Our lives are simply what they are, and Zen helps us to recognize that fact. The thought If I do this practice patiently enough, everything will be different is simply another belief system, another version of the promise that is never kept.

Baseball is one of the most beautiful games. It is. It is a very Zen-like game.

The mind is crazy thing. To be focused is the most difficult thing.

It's been said that golf is a Zen activity. I'd argue that if golfers were practicing Zen, they wouldn't keep score.

mad monk, minus the spiritual insight.

The goal was to center his mind on playing the shot at hand, rather than obsessing, at exactly the wrong moment, about the consequences.

One becomes vulnerable when one stops to think about winning, losing, taking advantage, impressing or disregarding the opponent. When the mind stops, even for a single instant, the body freezes, and free, fluid movement is lost.

O snail Climb Mount Fuji But slowly, slowly!

Reflected in the dragonfly's eye -- mountains.

This dewdrop world Is but a dewdrop world And yet —

everything else fell away,

Expect nothing and life will be velvet.

The only Zen you find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there.

Before enlightenment — chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment — chop wood, carry water.

Keep calm and acupuncture on.

Finding Nirvana is like locating silence.

I see a vision of a great rucksack revolution thousands or even millions of young Americans wandering around with rucksacks, going up to mountains to pray, making children laugh and old men glad, making young girls happy and old girls happier, all of 'em Zen Lunatics who go about writing poems that happen to appear in their heads for no reason and also by being kind and also by strange unexpected acts keep giving visions of eternal freedom to everybody and to all living creatures ...

It's only through form that we can realize emptiness