Zen Quotes
Zen Quote of the day
A fool sees himself as another, but a wise man sees others as himself.
To escape from the world means that one's mind is not concerned with the opinions of the world.
The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings.
Not thinking about anything is Zen. Once you know this, walking, sitting, or lying down, everything you do is Zen.
Let me give you a wonderful Zen practice. Wake up in the morning...look in the mirror, and laugh at yourself.
At Patagonia, making a profit is not the goal because the Zen master would say profits happen 'when you do everything else right'.
To practice Zen Buddhism is to train oneself to eliminate hatred, anger and selfishness and to develop loving-kindness towards all.
The Buddha is found in other people - even the ones we do not like very much.
Consider your own place in the universal oneness of which we are all a part, from which we all arise, and to which we all return.
All other creatures look down toward the earth, but man was given a face so that might turn his eyes toward the stars and his gaze upon the sky.
The renowned seventh-century Zen master Seng-tsan taught that true freedom is being "without anxiety about imperfection.
A Zen master, when asked where he would go after he died, replied, 'To Hell, for that's where help is needed most.'
I have lived with several Zen masters -- all of them cats.
The more you engage in any type of emotion or behavior, the greater your desire for it will become.
To say one is revolutionary is a little like saying one is a Zen Buddhist - if you say you are, you probably aren't.
But people of the deepest understanding look within, distracted by nothing. Since a clear mind is the Buddha, they attain the understanding of a Buddha without using the mind.
This, then, is what counts: a lightning reaction which has no further need of conscious observation. In this respect at least the pupil makes himself independent of all conscious purpose.
Who you allow into the circle of your life will make the difference in the quality of your life.
Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.
The Zen master walks in his garden, alone. There is no traffic there. There is no shopping there. There are only the flowers.
The object of Zen is not to kill all feelings and become anesthetized to pain and fear. The object of Zen is to free us to scream loudly and fully when it is time to scream.
The one who praises you is a thief. The one who criticizes you is your true friend.
Zen Buddhism does not preach. Sermons remain words. It waits until people feel stifled and insecure, driven by a secret longing.
It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable.
The point of the spiritual life is to realize Truth. But you will never understand the spiritual life, or realize Truth, if you measure it by your own yardstick.
The more you know, the less you need.
For there is never anything but the present, and if one cannot live there, one cannot live anywhere.
See for yourself whether letting go when a part of you really wants to hold on doesn't bring a deeper satisfaction than clinging.
There had to be something wrong with my life. I should have been born a Yugoslavian shepherd who looked up at the Big Dipper every night.
A Zen master used to say, It is clear and so it is hard to see. A dunce once searched for a fire with a lighted lantern. Had he known what fire was, he could have cooked his rice much sooner.
