Best 132 quotes in «zen buddhism quotes» category

Zen Buddhism is a discipline where belief isn't necessary.

[A] book is not merely a book, it is the sun as well.

Although Buddhism is unattainable, we vow to attain it.If it is unattainable, how can we attain it? But we should! That is Buddhism.

Anywhere we go, we will have our self with us; we cannot escape ourselves.

At a first glance, medical psychology seems to have nothing to do with religion. But at its depth it provides a new, though at the same time primordial, perspective on what should be the subject matter of religion. It is both a criticism and an approval of religion. It is in and through the soul that problems of the world reveal themselves as world problems.

Asian philosophy and culture never endured an intellectual upheaval like the Cartesian split of mind and body that brought the so-called Enlightenment to the West. The consequent achievements of scientific method and the less fortunate by-products of secular self-interest together laid the groundwork, in Europe and America, for the personal psychology of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.

As a matter of face, Zen is at present most fashionable in America among those who are least concerned with moral discipline. Zen has, indeed, become for us a symbol of moral revolt. It is true, the Zen-man's contempt for conventional and formalistic social custom is a healthy phenomenon, but it is healthy only because it presupposes a spiritual liberty based on freedom from passion, egotism and self-delusion. A pseudo-Zen attitude which seeks to justify a complete moral collapse with a few rationalizations based on the Zen Masters is only another form of bourgeois self-deception. It is not an expression of healthy revolt, but only another aspect of the same lifeless and inert conventionalism against which it appears to be protesting.

At the moment of giving birth to a child, is the mother separate from the child? You should study not only that you become a mother when your child is born, but also that you become a child.

Awareness of the existence of oneself leads to a crisis in which one’s being-in-the-world is fundamentally questioned. One’s existence, however, is not simply denied. Instead, one faces the basic fact that one is responsible for one’s relations to all humans and other beings through one’s acts.

A world which increasingly consists of destinations without journeys between them, a world which values only "getting somewhere" as fast as possible, becomes a world without substance.

Being in touch with oneself is the meaning of meditation, to be aware of what is going on in your body, in your feelings, in your mind.

Belief is at best an educated, informed conjecture about Reality.

Belief may serve as a useful stopgap measure in the absence of actual experience, but once you see … [it] becomes unnecessary.

[A] view of the world is nothing more than a set of beliefs, a way to freeze the world in our mind. … [T]his can never match Reality, … because the world isn't frozen.

Beyond anything we know to name, there moves a force arising from the pure juxtaposition of things, a force that draws us into being, that allows us to dwell fully in our lives. All pure juxtaposition is a gathering.

Bicycling incorporates tilt into balance. Unless one is willing to tilt toward a fall, one cannot avoid falling. We are at all times poised for imminent fall. That we do not continually crash is the working of a grace beyond our will. Do not think that we are held upright by the force of our own intent, for balance of itself seeks itself. We discard our training wheels when we acquire trust, when we discover that what is needed for our travels is already given to us in the very nature of things.

But what our social institutions repress is not just the sexual love, the mutuality, of man and woman, but also the still deeper love of organism and environment, of Yes and No, and of all those so-called opposites represented by the Taoist symbol of the yin-yang, the black and white fishes in eternal intercourse. It is hardly stretching a metaphor to use the word "love" for intimate relationships beyond those between human organisms.

Can you allow yourself to be impaled on the present moment?

But then people say, “Let’s get that miracle!” and it makes people crazy. We grope for something, something that makes us feel good and satisfied, putting knowledge into our heads, emphasizing miracles, technique, and power. But we don’t pay attention to the basic activity that is the source of those things. We can experience miracles, but a miracle is just part of impermanence. Sometimes a miracle is good, but sometimes a miracle is not so good. Zen Buddhism doesn’t emphasize miracles. We don’t pay attention to them. We just come back to the unknown time and space of this very moment, the source of miracles, in every moment of every day. Then, from a miracle, comes a very stable way of life.

Clear sight has nothing to do with trying to see; it is just the realization that that the eyes will take in every detail all by themselves, for so long as they open they can hardly prevent the light from reaching them. In the same way, there is no difficulty in being fully aware of the eternal present as soon as it is seen that one cannot possibly be aware of anything else - that in concrete fact there is no past or future.

Consideration of others extends beyond just other human beings to include all things—tables, cushions, even toilet paper. We must be considerate of all things and treat them with great appreciation and respect.

Do not lose yourself in the past. Do not lose yourself in the future. Do not get caught in your anger, worries, or fears. Come back to the present moment, and touch life deeply. This is mindfulness.

Birinin sarf ettiği sözlerden dolayı acı çekeriz ve hançerlenmiş gibi hissederiz. Ve kendi düşüncelerimiz de bizi her gün yüzlerce kez hançerler. Yine de çektiğimiz acı, sadece bizim acımız değildir.

Detachment doesn’t mean you should ignore form; it means you have to attach to form through and through. A form may bother you, but you need form because you love truth, you love peace, you love life itself.

Everything in the cosmos now proves to be relative. Nothing is autonomous in itself. All things in the world betray their interdependence with each other. Metaphysics ceases to be an abstract system of thought and becomes an experiential reality. Not beings in the world but the world itself comes to be questioned.

[F]ast intercommunication between points is making all points the same point.

For if we open our eyes and see clearly, it becomes obvious that there is no other time than this instant, and that the past and the future are abstractions without any concrete reality.

Everydayness perfumes the depth of life, the huge ocean where all are interconnected, and makes your life mature. Then a new life arises from the depth and appears on the surface. So, by taking care of everydayness, you don’t make just the surface mature; you also make the depth of your life mature.

[E]ven in getting the wonderful things we long for, we tend to live in want of something more[.]

For some people, being a Zen monk is the perfect expression. For others, drinking beer and calling meditation hogwash is the perfect expression. Some teachers will tell you to sweep the floor mindfully, and others will tell you that your mindful sweeping is only a dream. Life is wonderfully playful and diverse.

[F]ocus not on ourselves as a force in charge of the manipulation of others, but on how our lives interpenetrate those of others – and … all creatures of a dynamic universe.

[F]or Zen there is no duality, no conflict between the natural element of chance and the human element of control. The constructive powers of the human mind are no more artificial than the formative actions of plants or bees, so that from the standpoint of Zen it is no contradiction to say that artistic technique is discipline in spontaneity and spontaneity in discipline.

God is the Self of the world, but you can't see God for the same reason that, without a mirror, you can't see your own eyes, and you certainly can't bite your own teeth or look inside your head. Your self is that cleverly hidden because it is God hiding.

Good and bad aren't absolutes. They are beliefs, judgements, ideas based on limited knowledge as well as on the inclinations of our minds.

Good times come and go. And bad times do the same.

How can a hard and fast view of a world that is never hard and fast possibly be accurate?

[H]ow can something cease to exist that has no solid existence in the first place?

However, for human beings, practice is much too tiresome. We want to show our appreciation like sightseers, without doing it ourselves. Like spectator sports, which are very popular, the Zen fad is really a spectator Zen or Zen sightseeing fad.

How you anything is how you do everything

[H]uman experience is determined as much by the nature of the mind and the structure of its senses as by the external objects whose presence the mind reveals.

Here might not be a place of great activity or planning, but it is possibly a place of rest, or of seeing things a different way, or of something yet undiscovered. Even now, turning toward here, I feel the struggle lessen and some deep clenching subtly ease.

However, for human beings, practice is much too tiresome. We want to show our appreciation like sightseers, without doing it ourselves. Like spectator sports, which are very popular, the Zen fad is really a spectator Zen or Zen sightseeing fad. Roshi, Kosho Uchiyama. Zen Teaching of Homeless Kodo (Kindle Locations 2165-2167). Wisdom Publications. Kindle Edition.

How much does he lack himself who must have many things?

I feel like a single-celled bacterium that has taken up permanent residence in the welcoming darkness of my intestinal track—content to do my part in the ongoing work of digestion even though I know nothing of “food” or “nourishment” or the impossibly larger multicelled biped that believes itself to be 'David.

If you desire to gaze out over wide vistas, you do well to climb up to a high spot. But if you wish to gaze into the human heart, you must climb down and look from a low place.

If he hadn’t become a Buddhist monk, Sawaki Roshi would have been successful in a worldly sense in business, politics, or the military. Instead, he devoted his life to wholeheartedly practicing Dogen Zenji’s just sitting, or shikantaza, which according to him was good for nothing. For him, social climbing in pursuit of fame and profit was meaningless. The Japanese expression for “waste” is bonifuru, which means “sacrifice,” “lose all,” or “ruin.” So when we say he wasted his life, we use the expression in a paradoxical way—like saying that zazen is good for nothing.

If you are lost in a forest at night, you can follow the North Star to find your way out. You follow the North Star, but your goal is to get back home; it’s not to arrive at the North Star.

If you don’t understand, please keep your mouth shut and just live with all sentient beings in peace and harmony beyond your intellectual speculation. It’s not necessary to think how much that helps people or how many people it helps. All you have to do is be peaceful with people right now, right here, day by day.

If your idea of good opposes something else, you can be sure that [it] is not absolute or certain.

If you try to examine your life analytically, asking yourself who you are, finally you will realize that there is something you cannot reach. You don’t know what it is, but you feel the presence of something you want to connect with. This is sometimes called the absolute. Buddha and Dogen Zenji say true self. Christians say God.