Zen Quotes

During this journey it was as if he again thought over his whole life and reached the same old comfo...

A teacher I once had told me that the older you get, the lonelier you become and the deeper the love...

When it is understood that one loses joy and happiness in the attempt to possess them, the essence o...

The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of huma...

...it's like this. Sometimes, when you've a very long street ahead of you, you think how terribly lo...

Learning to let go should be learned before learning to get. Life should be touched, not strangled. ...

The problem with all students, he said, is that they inevitably stop somewhere. They hear an idea an...

The problem with all students, he said, is that they inevitably stop somewhere. They hear an idea an...

The problem with all students, he said, is that they inevitably stop somewhere. They hear an idea an...

The problem with all students, he said, is that they inevitably stop somewhere. They hear an idea an...

An alternative — and better — definition of reality can be found by naming some of its components: a...

The real ugliness lies in the relationship between people who produce the technology and the things ...

Actually I've never seen a cycle-maintenance problem complex enough really to require full-scale for...

But the ones who go posing as moralists are the worst. Cost-free morals. Full of great ways for othe...

To doubt the literal meaning of the words of Jesus or Moses incurs hostility from most people, but i...

But until then, and right now, the sun is bright, the air is cool, my head is clear, there’s a whole...

Newton invented a new form of reason. He expanded reason to handle infinitesimal changes and I think...

Mountains like these and travelers in the mountains and events that happen to them here are found no...

She was strangely unaware that she could look and see freshly for herself, as she wrote, without pri...

The title of this Chautauqua is "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," not "Zen and the Art of...

You’ve got to live right, too. It’s the way you live that predisposes you to avoid the traps and see...

Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire. The reality of you...

The truth knocks on the door and you say, "Go away, I'm looking for the truth," and so it goes away....

For every fact there is an infinity of hypotheses.The more you look the more you see.

What he’s looking for, what he wants, is all around him, but he doesn’t want that because it is all ...

Zazen is better than a home. Zazen is a home that you can't ever lose.

Before we were born we had no feeling; we were one with the universe. This is called "mind-only," or...

Even though you read much Zen literature, you must read each sentence with a fresh mind. You should ...

I discovered that it is necessary, absolutely necessary, to believe in nothing. That is, we have to ...

Even in zazen you will lose yourself. When you become sleepy, or when your mind starts to wander abo...

In your big mind, everything has the same value...In your practice you should accept everything as i...

One time Marian showed me some sand. When she gave it to me, she said, "These are very interesting s...

A student, filled with emotion and crying, implored, "Why is there so much suffering?"Suzuki Roshi r...

Zen is not some fancy, special art of living. Our teaching is just to live, always in reality, in it...

Zen is nothing to get excited about.

In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few

When you do something, you should do it with your whole body and mind; you should be concentrated on...

In our practice we have no particular purpose or goal, nor any special object of worship.

Commander, I always used to consider that you had a definite anti-authoritarian streak in you.”“Sir?...

Pardon all runners,All speechless, alien winds,All mad waters.Pardon their impulses,Their wild attit...

As a matter of face, Zen is at present most fashionable in America among those who are least concern...

It is this kind of consciousness, exacerbated to an extreme, which has made inevitable the so called...

Modern man, in so far as he is still Cartesian (he is of course going far beyond Descartes in many r...

The story of the Fall tells us in mythical language that "original sin" is not simply a stigma arbit...

What you know can never be the beyond. Whatever you experience is not the beyond. If there is any be...

If you just sit and observe, you will see how restless your mind is. If you try to calm it, it only ...

I hope that I am making myself understood. The Golden Temple once more appeared before me. Or rather...

The baby looks at things all day without winking; that is because his eyes are not focused on any pa...

Flow with whatever may happen, and let your mind be free: Stay centered by accepting whatever you ar...

Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spiritu...

Silence is the language of Om. We need silence to be able to reach our Self. Both internal and exter...

Life is more or less a lie, but then again, that's exactly the way we want it to be.

Not being tense but ready.Not thinking but not dreaming.Not being set but flexible.Liberation from t...

To Mr. Jones, she said, imagine you're looking up at a blue sky, and imagine a tiny airplane skywrit...

Until today, it really pissed me off that I'd become this totally centered Zen Master, and nobody ha...

The way out is through the door. Why is it that no one will use this method?

To speak conventionally - and I think it is easier for the general reader to see Zen thus presented ...

The idea of Zen is to catch life as it flows. There is nothing extraordinary or mysterious about Zen...

When mountain-climbing is made too easy, the spiritual effect the mountain exercises vanishes into t...

Who would then deny that when I am sipping tea in my tearoom I am swallowing the whole universe with...

To preserve the silence within--amid all the noise. To remain open and quiet, a moist humus in the f...

Like wind-- In it, with it, of it. Of it just like a sail, so light and strong that, even when it is...

Doffing the ego'ssafe glory, he findshis naked reality.

Humility is just as much the opposite of self-abasement as it is of self-exaltation. To be humble is...

The dizziness in the face of les espaces infinis--only overcome if we dare to gaze into them without...

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

Humility before the flower at the timber line is the gate which gives access to the path up the open...

Learning how to think' really means learning how to exercise some control over how & what you think....

The most dangerous thing about an academic education is that it enables my tendency to over-intellec...

To escape from the world means that one's mind is not concerned with the opinions of the world.

Your body is like a dew-drop on the morning grass, your life is as brief as a flash of lightning. Mo...

When you paint Spring, do not paint willows, plums, peaches, or apricots, but just paint Spring. To ...

Life and death are of supreme importance. Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost. Each of us...

If you are unable to find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?

Nothing can be gained by extensive study and wide reading. Give them up immediately.

One must be deeply aware of the impermanence of the world.

To enter the Buddha Way is to stop discriminating between good and evil and to cast aside the mind t...

Every man possesses the Buddha-nature. Do not demean yourselves.

A fool sees himself as another, but a wise man sees others as himself.

I have lived with several Zen masters -- all of them cats.

And the question of Wester religion,” Flattery said, “is: What lies beyond death? But the question o...

When the mind is exhausted of images, it invents its own.

Hard to restrain, unstable is this mind; it flits wherever it lists. Good it is to control the mind....

But when you're in front of an audience and you make them laugh at a new idea, you're guiding the wh...

There had to be something wrong with my life. I should have been born a Yugoslavian shepherd who loo...

What is a course of history, or philosophy, or poetry, no matter how well selected, or the best soci...

Like vanishing dew,a passing apparitionor the sudden flashof lightning -- already gone --thus should...

that stone Buddha deserves all the birdshit it getsI wave my skinny arms like a tall flower in the...

we're lost where the mind can't find usutterly lost

Hearing a crow with no mouthCry in the deepDarkness of the night,I feel a longing forMy father befor...

clouds very high looknot one word helped them get up there

born born everything is always bornthinking about it try not to

I'd love to give you somethingbut what would help?

don't wait for the man standing in the snowto cut off his arm help him now

it isn't that we're alone or not alonewhose voice do you want mine? yours?

When you've understood this scripture, throw it away. If you can't understand this scripture, throw ...

This is shaping up even worse than you anticipated. Still, you feel a measure of detachment, as if y...

Life is a journey. Time is a river. The door is ajar

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

What is the purpose of writing music? One is, of course, not dealing with purposes but dealing with ...