Frederick Lenz Quotes
You may have had countless lives, and many more stretching before you, and what else have you got to do with your time?
Forever is not an idea or a concept, it is reality. All of the things here come from forever. We call forever nirvana in Zen.
The mind of the Buddha is perfect because it is empty and yet it contains all things.
You and I are both life. There's just the experience of every moment. We like to call them moments. There isn't really such a thing. There's just is-ness; there's just eternity.
There are no words, there's only the possibility of a moment even more incredible a little bit further down the road.
You come back to the beginning. That's why in the "Searching for the Ox" sequence, at the very end of that sequence of the Zen paintings, we're back in the world again.
I don't think anyone knows why they meditate. As a matter of fact I'm not even sure that we do meditate. All we know is that we don't know.
A person trying to meditate is doing something that's impossible since meditation is not an action.
You're not the doer. What's to do? You can't undo what's not done. It's all one anyway, why think about it? But you need to discriminate, so you'd better think about it.
Stop trying to figure it all. Why worry about it all so much? Why not just live? And then you die. And then you live again, unless, of course, you follow me.
Perfection is not a final state. It is a state of mind. There are ten thousand states of mind.
The reason you see yourself as a creep is because you have an appreciation of what perfection is, whereas no one else conceives of themselves in that way, since they don't even strive.
Discriminate between the transient and the eternal. Learn to move from complete control to complete abandon.
The world that you see is like a motion picture. We are engrossed in a film and we have forgotten that we're sitting in a movie theatre.
Zen students see themselves as athletes. Their competitive sport is enlightenment; only with enlightenment do we compete.
There is competition in Zen. Let's not be ridiculous. There is competition in everything in life; being a winner in Zen means, competing and winning in the world of enlightenment.
Thousands and thousands of incarnations and nothing to show for it. You must choose whether to follow the path of love or the path of attachment.
When your Japanese lifetime is coming out, drink all the sake you want. Have a little bash.
It is in Zen practice that you gain power, balance and wisdom. The battles that you fight are within your own mind. That is where the real victories and defeats are.
Eternity is everywhere, it stretches endlessly in all directions, never beginning and never ending. Merge with it. Embrace it. Be free and disciplined.
There is no ultimate objective reality within the ten thousand states of mind. Most people don't like to hear this. But there are ten thousand realities, and each is definitely unifying.
What you focus on you become. So always focus on that which is highest, brightest, happiest and most noble of all things, enlightenment.
To look for truth in all the wrong and all the right places is the only excuse for living.
The sensual experiences in life are not to be avoided. This is the philosophy of Tantric Buddhism - nor are they particularly to be sought after.
Celibacy doesn't make you enlightened, otherwise every nun or priest in Buddhism or Christianity would be enlightened. People who don't date and can't get any action would be enlightened.
Some people, of course, say they're practicing tantra. There are a lot of books on tantric sexual practice in local bookstores. These are usually pretty silly books.
Purity is innocence, the innocence of lack of self. Desire is innocent unless it's connected with self.
In Tantric Buddhism our feeling is that there is no problem with the sensual world unless you have a tremendous attraction or aversion to it.
The issue is not what you're doing with your body; it's what you're doing with your mind.
Obviously there is a lot more ecstasy in the spirit than in the flesh but the flesh has its moments!
What is Tantric Zen? Well, I don't think I can give you a straight answer, since I don't happen to be a very straight Zen master.
In Tantric Zen you can be humorous and make fun of anything or you can be very serious.
Tantric Zen leads to illumination and fun right here and now, which is why I like it.
What I term Zen, old Zen, the original face of Zen, new Zen, pure Zen, or Tantric Zen is - Zen in its essence.
Tantric Zen is the exploration of everything, since everything is a part of enlightenment.
There's a place where everything comes together and where it's all the same. That state of mind, in which all things are the same, is the state of mind of Tantric Zen.
It is necessary to have a very liberal and simultaneously very conservative mentality to practice Tantric Zen.
Tantric Zen is all about the practice of zazen meditation. If you meditate well, you'll be in very powerful states of mind and then it really doesn't matter what you do.
Tantric Zen is the awareness of the infinitude of all things. To gain that awareness, to be it, is enlightenment.
Tantric Zen, at first, does not appear to have a method. In Tantric Zen, you could meditate on a Brillo box or you could meditate on the clear light of reality.
Your immediate experience is Tantric Zen. How aware are you of your immediate experience? - Probably not that aware.
Tantric Zen is for the individual who is in love with both the finite and the infinite, who gets a kick out of this weird transitory world and at the same time, wants to step beyond it.
Tantric Zen is more suited for this age that we live in. It give you rules, but in a gentle way. It's not as demanding.
Tantric Zen is not being kinky; nor is it being conservative and austere. It is eclectic. It is a real mixture of all things.