Quotes About Zen

This is the monkey mind of which Zen speaks: the mind that worries, doubts, frets about the past, makes lists, all the time chattering like a monkey.

A belligerent samurai, an old Japanese tale goes, once challenged a Zen master to explain the concept of heaven and hell. But the monk replied with scorn, "You're nothing but a lout— I can't waste my time with the likes of you!" His very honor attacked, the samurai flew into a rage and, pulling his sword from its scabbard, yelled, "I could kill you for your impertinence.""That," the monk calmly replied, "is hell.

all meditation methods at their root are practices in strengthening attention

to be nothing is to enter into totality

When myriad experiences leave no trace, how great! To practice like this is liberation.

Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness.

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.

And the Yak, they can afford to move so fucking slow, man, they'll wait years and years. Give you a whole life, just so you'll have more to lose when they come and take it away. Patient like a spider. Zen spiders.

Nobody goes into a Zen monastery as a tourist.

The closer things get to nonexistence, the more exquisite and evocative they become. Consequently to experience wabi-wabi means you have to slow way down, be patient, and look very closely.

ALRIGHT then, be a Zen monk. But you wait and see. You'll be happy and bright. You'll laugh. People will envy and ridicule you. You won't care. (sigh)

When you find nothing, Morris said, it means you're eliminating what surrounds the something. Is that a Zen thing? Eve questioned. If not, it should be.

is the meaning of the Japanese Zen Satori, the meaning of the Buddha when he spoke of Nirvana, and of Jesus when he spoke of Heaven. April 19, 1960: Q: What is Heaven? A: A state of mind, open to all men, which comes through careful following of the path. It is a new experience of the universe, which shows the many worlds within

Act without striving. Work without interfering. Find the flavour in what is flavourless.

Practice non-action. Work without doing.

There's something Zen-like about the way I work - it's like raking gravel in a Zen Buddhist garden.

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.

I don't stress too much on things, be it failure or success.

In Japanese houses the interior melts into the gardens of the outside world.

Confidence in golf means being able to concentrate on the problem at hand..

Water which is too pure has no fish.

His book accurately reflects what I feel in traveling in America—the solitary road trip that is in many respects a Zen experience, scattered with road candy, unavailable to motorists in any other country on earth.

Near Tokyo lived a great Samurai warrior, now old, who decided to teach Zen Buddhism to young people. In spite of his age, the legend was that he could defeat any adversary.

As the Zen master Suzuki Roshi put it, "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few.