Zen Quotes

Zen is magic. It gives you the key to open the miraculous. And the miraculous is in you and the key is also in you.

Pardon all runners, All speechless, alien winds, All mad waters.Pardon their impulses, Their wild attitudes, Their young flights, their reticence.When a message has no clothes onHow can it be spoken.

He who fights is powerless, but he who loves is power itself.

The sacred stillness of your brilliant hearthas as the myriad wonders masqueraded.But if you knew this secret from the start, then you'd have quit this Game before you played it.

To travel is to be alive, but to get somewhere is to be dead.

Like vanishing dew, a passing apparitionor the sudden flashof lightning -- already gone --thus should one regard one's self.

This accidentalmeeting of possibilitiescalls itself I.I ask: what am I doing here?And, at once, this Ibecomes unreal.

Shall you live authentically who you are or will you spend your allotted living the life of someone you imagine your self to be?

Perfection itself is not the ultimate goalbut the ultimate condition of life.

The object of your desire is not an object.

I have found so many angels trapped inside undisputed jargon that I find myself digging at the words, in order to release them, from the books that unfairly captured their soul.

She trailed behind Baba and Jiji as they left the palace, nightingales singing a sad farewell.

She was strangely unaware that she could look and see freshly for herself, as she wrote, without primary regard for what had been said before.

With life the truth is not what is right or wrong, but with life the truth is the process, where life unfolds in every individual, and takes him to the whole.

Shigemori's body of work is a compelling manifesto for continuous cultural renewal.

When angry, count to Zen.

Perfectionists are neurotic people. The world is perfectly beautiful in its imperfection.

I'm born with wild horses in my head..With an imagination to conquer this world..I will not settle for comforts of a golden cage.

Clarity clattered into my thoughts and brought about a satori, an enlightenment, if you will.

You know you have arrived when you have stopped caring about the destination

Life is full of highs and lows. We need them both to grow to our fullest potential. Just hang on tight & enjoy the ride.

The only 'elephant' left in the room is love.

Zen is the period of time during which a person has true clarity of vision.

Mindfulness is attainable when one can embrace life, not its circumstances.

Walk slowly through the world and pay attention

Sometimes it takes a miracle to remind us that the only permanent condition is that of impermanence.

They asked a wise man: Why don’t we ever hear you backbiting and slandering?He said: I’m still not happy with myself to start with others.

Every answer you ever need lies within your own silence..

It’s kind of like a Zen thing. Like playing the piano, or being a centipede in Heaven.

No ideals. No illusions. Just reality - but more perfect than you’ve ever imagined. That’s what being mindful and living in the present means.

what is not true does not exist in this moment.

There is no other space, no other time. This moment is all. In this moment the whole existence converges, in this moment all is available.

What makes human life--which is inseparable from this moment--so precious is its fleeting nature. And not that it doesn't last but that it never returns again.

This will never come again

Aggression, Violence, Exploitation, Depression, Despair, Prejudice, War, Intolerance, Poverty, Are all a result of a misunderstanding of the nature of Self.

You listen to people, you listen so deeply that you can hear their past lives, The crackle of their funeral pyres,

itt was snowing as if you could hear wolves howling

The true tragedy in most people’s lives is that they are far better than they imagine themselves to be and, as a result, end up being much less than they might be.

Problems that remain persistently insoluble should always be suspected as questions asked in the wrong way

Can the water in the valleys ever stop and rest?When the water finally reaches the sea, it becomes great waves.

Your body is like a dew-drop on the morning grass, your life is as brief as a flash of lightning. Momentary and vain, it is lost in a moment. (From 'Fukan zazengi')

Almost everything that I've ever worried about has never happened ..

Here, then, is the last moment of true perception, a man fishing in a red jacket and a cloudy sky reflected on opaque water.

The path of Tao is not that of sudden enlightenment. It is not like Zen. Zen is sudden enlightenment, Tao is gradual growth.

Does one really have to fretAbout enlightenment?No matter what road I travel, I’m going home.

No such thing as time travel, he'd rumbled patiently, once. Only live with what you've done, and try in the future to do what you're happy to live with.

The positive effect music has in our lives is understated. It can influence mind-state and motivate us to reach for the stars.

When fishermen cannot go to sea, they repair nets.

I discovered that those who seldom dwell on their emotions know better than anyone else just what an emotion is.

Flow with whatever may happen, and let your mind be free: Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.