Quotes About Zen

The secret of this kind of climbing, is like Zen. Don't think. Just dance along. It's the easiest thing in the world, actually easier than walking on flat ground which is monotonous. The cute little problems present themselves at each step and yet you don't hesitate and you find yourself on some other boulder you picked out for no special reason at all, just like zen.~ Japhy

I nudged myself closer to the ledge and closed my eyes and thought 'Oh what a life this is, why do we have to be born in the first place, and only so we can have our poor gentle flesh laid out to such impossible horrors as huge mountains and rock and empty space,' and with horror I remembered the famous Zen saying, 'When you get to the top of a mountain, keep climbing.' The saying made my hair stand on end; it had been such cute poetry sitting on Alvah's straw mats.

finally I went over to an old cook in the doorway of the kitchen and asked him "Why did Bodhidharma come from the West?" (Bodhidharma was the Indian who brought Buddhism eastward to China.) "I don't care," said the old cook, with lidded eyes, and I told Japhy and he said, "Perfect answer, absolutely perfect. Now you know what I mean by Zen.

little absent from everything in the way of a Zen Master actually who realizes that everything is indifferent anyway

We've got to have mind-collecting weeks in our zendos where your mind tries to fly off like a Tinker Toy and like a good soldier you put it back together with your eyes closed except of course the whole thing is wrong.

All those Zen Masters throwing young kids in the mud because they can't answer their silly word questions That's because they want them to discover that mud is better than words, boy.

The secret of this kind of climbing," said Japhy, "is like Zen. Don't think. Just dance along. It's the easiest thing in the world, actually easier than walking on flat ground which is monotonous. The cute little problems present themselves at each step and yet you never hesitate and you find yourself on some other boulder you picked out for no special reason at all, just like Zen." Which it was. We didn't talk much now.

Be true to the thought of the moment and avoid distraction. Other than continuing to exert yourself, enter into nothing else, but go to the extent of living single thought by single thought.

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

Zen is the unsymbolization of the world.

No se puede comprender el zen a través de los libros y conferencias. Se trata de descubrir en nosotros el origen de la vida manifestada. No podemos nutrirnos de la imagen de la manzana, ni podemos saber sin tocarla si el agua está caliente o fría.

Zen questioning is a very gentle questioning. It is the kind of questioning that the Colorado River asks the Grand Canyon over centuries and centuries.

La vie et la mort sont identiques.

Regardless of how long Daitsu Chisho Buddha sits, regardless of how long you sit, the Buddha dharma never appears because it is already here! Reveal it! Do not cover it up!

Zen is to have the heart and soul of a little child.

Completely forget about the mind and you will do all things well

The renowned seventh-century Zen master Seng-tsan taught that true freedom is being "without anxiety about imperfection.

Zen master Seng-tsan taught that true freedom is being "without anxiety about imperfection.

I'm a very spiritual guy. I'm a firm believer of positive energy.

When I was walking in the mountains with the Japanese man and began to hear the water, he said, 'What is the sound of the waterfall?' 'Silence,' he finally told me.

totally unconnected, as inscrutable as a Tibetan monk on quaaludes.

At the Bauhaus, Josef Albers wrote a friend for whose apartment he was designing furniture, "An empty room is always the best.

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.

Zen is a journey of exploration and a way of living that, in and of itself, does not belong to any one religion or tradition. It is about experiencing life in the here and now and about removing the dualistic distinctions between I and you between subject and objective, between our spiritual and our ordinary, everyday activities.