Zen Buddhism Quotes

A student, filled with emotion and crying, implored, Why is there so much suffering?Suzuki Roshi replied, No reason.

~ Shunryu Suzuki

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.

~ Alan W. Watts

On my journey from the fantastical to the practical, spirituality has gone from being a mystical experience to something very ordinary and a daily experience. Many don’t want this, instead they prefer spiritual grandeur, and I believe that is what keeps enlightenment at bay. We want big revelations of complexity that validates our perceptions of the divine. What a let down it was to Moses when God spoke through a burning bush! But that is exactly the simplicity of it all. Our spiritual life is our ordinary life and it is very grounded in every day experience. For me, it is the daily practice of kindness, mindfulness, happiness, and peace.

~ Alaric Hutchinson

Render unto meditation the things that are meditation’s, and unto medication the things that are medication’s.

~ Barry Graham

While you are continuing this practice, week after week, year after year, your experience will become deeper and deeper, and your experience will cover everything you do in your everyday life. The most important thing is to forget all gaining ideas, all dualistic ideas. In other words, just practice zazen in a certain posture. Do not think about anything. Just remain on your cushion without expecting anything. Then eventually you will resume your own true nature. That is to say, your own true nature resumes itself.

~ Shunryu Suzuki

In zazen, leave your front door and your back door open. Let thoughts come and go. Just don't serve them tea.

~ Shunryu Suzuki

You will bring yourself the suffering you need to bring yourself so that you may awaken.

~ T. Scott Mcleod

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

~ T. Scott Mcleod

It is the rub that polishes the jewel,” Enso Roshi says. “Nobody ever gets to nirvana without going through samsara. Nobody ever gets to heaven, without going through hell. The center of all things, the truth, is surrounded by demons.

~ T. Scott Mcleod

Life is a whirlwind of many opportunities. Choose to embrace all of them in deepest gratitude. Learn to forgive yourself and honour the heart that beats within you, as well as the head that rests on your shoulders. Learn how to believe in people again and not be judging or cynical to various beliefs.We are all of one light on this one Earth, and loving humanity makes all the difference.

~ Michelle Cruz-Rosado

To have some deep feeling about Buddhism is not the point; we just do what we should do, like eating supper and going to bed. This is Buddhism.

~ Shunryu Suzuki

You don´t have to let it linger Within the palm of your hand, The tip's already in your finger:All beginning comes to an end.

~ Ana Claudia Antunes

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.

~ Francis Harold Cook

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

~ Benjamin Aubrey Myers

When you break something, is your first impulse to throw it away? Or do you repair it but feel a sadness because it is no longer perfect? Whatever the case, you might want to consider the way the Japanese treated the items used in their tea ceremony. Even though they were made from the simplest materials... these teacups and bowls were revered for their plain lines and spiritual qualities. There were treated with the utmost care, integrity and respect.For this reason, a cup from the tea ceremony was almost never broken. When an accident did occur and a cup was broken, there were certain instances in which the cup was repaired with gold. Rather than trying to restore it in a what they would cover the gace that it ahad been broken, the cracks were celebrated in a bold and spirited way. The thin paths of shining gold completely encircled the ceramic cup, announcing to the world that the cup was broken and repaired and vulnerable to change.And in this way, its value was even further enhanced.

~ Gary Thorp

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.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

We do so much, we run so quickly, the situation is difficult, and many people say, Don't just sit there, do something. But doing more things may make the situation worse. So you should say, Don't just do something, sit there. Sit there, stop, be yourself first, and begin from there.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Meditation is to be aware of what is going on: in your body, in your feelings, in your mind, and in the world.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

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

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

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.

~ Thomas Merton

Life's Journeys Inward seeking moves towards being-time Outward seeking journies among life's ornaments

~ Earl R Smith Ii

The buddha-dharma … is about directly seeing Truth, prior to forming any ideas about it. It is about responding to each particular situation as it comes … , not according to some … program of dos and don'ts.

~ Steve Hagen

[T]here is really nothing 'out there' to get because, already, within this moment, everything is whole and complete.

~ Steve Hagen

The impossibility of arriving at Truth by giving up your own authority and following the lights of others. Such a path will only lead to an opinion.

~ Steve Hagen

[I]mpermanence [is] the very thing that makes [life] vibrant, wonderful, and alive.

~ Steve Hagen

Question everything, even the question mark, that shepherd's crook floating in the air above that small round rockIf you - stubbornly - still wish to be unhappy,maybe you can grasp it.

~ Dick Allen

Zen has a pronounced iconoclastic tendency, and regards the study of texts, doctrines, and dogmas as a potential hindrance to spiritual awakening, relying instead on humour, spontaneity, unconventionality, poetry, and other forms of artistic expression to communicate the idea of enlightenment

~ Damien Keown

So, without telling any of my Zen-snob buddies, I liked to pretend everything was the Pure Land, that my life was already perfect as it was.

~ Jaimal Yogis

When you do something, you should do it with your whole body and mind; you should be concentrated on what you do. You should do it completely, like a good bonfire. You should not be a smoky fire. You should burn yourself completely. If you do not burn yourself completely, a trace of yourself will be left in what you do.

~ Shunryu Suzuki

Life gives you exactly what you need to awaken.

~ T. Scott Mcleod

There were so many beliefs which we had about the world, which then influenced everything, everything, about how we saw the world and interacted in the world and were with others. Everything. It was profound to me, amazing, the ramifications, the implications, the far-reaching impact that one’s beliefs could have on the world. It was actually mind-blowing for me. Figuratively speaking. Like, it was just, holy shit. Look at that. And nobody, hardly anybody sees it. They’re just ideas. Ideas. And yet, I’d believed them for so long, and still, was still shirking free of them. How was it that we believed in them, so readily, so easily?

~ T. Scott Mcleod

The Zen Monk Kyō Has Changed His Name to Mujū Dōryū. I Wrote This Verse to Celebrate The Great Prospects That Lie Before HimUnwillingness to remain in the ruts of former Buddha patriarchs Unsurpassed aspiration and fierce passion to achieve the Way These are precisely the qualities found in a true Zen monk Attained the very moment you have been there and back.

~ Baisao

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

~ Sen No Rikyū

Careful! Even moonlit dewdrops, If you’re lured to watch, Are a wall before the Truth. — Sogyo

~ Sogyo

Zen probably won’t solve a single one of our problems. What it might do is help us relate differently to what we consider problems.

~ Barry Graham

When we attach to a problem, we make the problem worse. When we attach to a solution, we make the problem worse.

~ Barry Graham

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

~ Steve Hagen

[W]e have endless opportunities to forget the self – in planting a tree for future generations; in creating a poem, a meal, a vessel of clay

~ ;Steve Hagen

There's no rule in the end, but only the situation and the inclination of your mind

~ Steve Hagen

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

~ Steve Hagen