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Famous Quotes about zen“ You and your brain are two things. The brain is your machinery just like everything else is your machinery. This hand is my mechanism; I use it. My brain is my mechanism; I use it. ” “ The moment you start seeing life as non-serious, a playfulness, all the burden on your heart disappears. All the fear of death, of life, of love - everything disappears. One starts living with a very light weight or almost no weight. So weightless one becomes, one can fly in the open sky. Zens greatest contribution is to give you an alternative to the serious man. The serious man has made the world, the serious man has made all the religions. He has created all the philosophies, all the cultures, all the moralities; everything that exists around you is a creation of the serious man. Zen has dropped out of the serious world. It has created a world of its own which is very playful, full of laughter, where even great masters behave like children. ” “ We were created to be creative. Consider the amazing variety of tools we carry with and within our bodies. ” “ How can you think and hit at the same time? ” “ All that's visible springs from causes intimate to you. While walking, sitting, lying down, the body itself is complete truth. If someone asks the inner meaning of this: "Inside the treasury of dharma eye a single grain of dust." ” “ In autumn even though I may see it again, how can I sleep with the moon this evening? ” “ The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he is always doing both. ” “ You become that which you think you are. Or, it is not that you become it, but that the idea gets very deeply rooted - and that's what all conditioning is. ” “ Don't seek, don't search, don't ask, don't knock, don't demand - relax. If you relax, it comes. If you relax, it is there. If you relax, you start vibrating with it. ” “ And the more you become aware of the unknown self - if you become aware of it - the more you realize that it is inseparably connected with everything else that is. ” “ For Zen, man is the goal; man is the end unto himself. God is not something above humanity, God is something hidden within humanity. Man is carrying God in himself as a potentiality. ” “ Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.” ” “ The future of humanity will move closer and closer toward the approach of Zen, because the meeting of the East and West is possible only through something like Zen, which is earthly and yet unearthly. ” “ 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." ” “ Zen asks you to come out of the head and go to the basic source.... It is not that Zen is not aware of the uses of energy in the head, but if all the energy is used in the head, you will never become aware of your eternity.... You will never know as an experience what it is to be one with the whole. When the energy is just at the center, pulsating, when it is not moving anywhere, neither in the head nor in the heart, but it is at the very source from where the heart takes it, the head takes it, pulsating at the very source--that is the very meaning of Zazen. Zazen means just sitting at the very source, not moving anywhere, a tremendous force arises, a transformation of energy into light and love, into greater life, into compassion, into creativity. It can take many forms. But first you have to learn how to be at the source. Then the source will decide where your potential is. You can relax at the source, and it will take you to your very potential. ” “ Zen in it's essence is the art of seeing into the nature of one's being, and it points the way from bondage to freedom ” “ Zen says everything is divine so how can anything be special? All is special. Nothing is non-special so nothing can be special. ” “ The feminine is more powerful than the masculine, the soft is more powerful than the hard, the water is more powerful than the rock. ” “ Refraining from all evil, not clinging to birth and death, working in deep compassion for all sentient beings, respecting those over you and pitying those below you, without any detesting or desiring, worrying or lamentation - this is what is called Buddha. Do not search beyond it. ” “ Zen has no theory. It is a non-theoretical approach into reality. It has no doctrine and no dogma - hence it has no church, no priest, no pope. ” “ To transform breakdowns into breakthroughs is the whole function of a master. The psychotherapist simply patches you up. That is his function. He is not there to transform you. You need a meta-psychology, the psychology of the buddhas. It is the greatest adventure in life to go through a breakdown consciously. It is the greatest risk because there is no guarantee that the breakdown will become a breakthrough. It does become, but these things cannot be guaranteed. Your chaos is very ancient - for many, many lives you have been in chaos. It is thick and dense. It is almost a universe in itself. So when you enter into it with your small capacity, of course there is danger. But without facing this danger nobody has ever become integrated, nobody has ever become an individual, indivisible. Zen, or meditation, is the method which will help you to go through the chaos, through the dark night of the soul, balanced, disciplined, alert. The dawn is not far away, but before you can reach the dawn, the dark night has to be passed through. And as the dawn comes closer, the night will become darker. ” “ Whether talking or remaining silent, Whether moving or standing quiet, The Essence itself is ever at ease. ” “ Sit quietly doing nothing, spring comes, and the grass grows by itself. ” “ Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes. ” “ Those who know don't tell and those who tell don't know. ” “ Walking is Zen, sitting is Zen. ” “ Calm in quietude is not real calm. When you can be calm in the midst of activity, this is the true state of nature. Happiness in comfort is not real happiness. When you can be happy in the midst of hardship, then you see the true potential of the mind. ” “ God is a synergetic experience. Science can never reveal it, philosophy can never come to it - only a poetic approach, a very passive, very loving approach, can. ” “ The moment you enter into the world of words you start falling away from that which is. The more you enter into language, the farther you are away from existence. ” “ Yes, when you see for the first time, a great laughter arises in you - the laughter about the whole ridiculousness of your misery, the laughter about the whole foolishness of your problems, the laughter about the whole absurdity of your suffering. ” “ Those who see worldly life as an obstacle to Dharma see no Dharma in everyday actions. They have not yet discovered that there are no everyday actions outside of Dharma. ” “ This is the Zen approach: nothing is there to be done. There is nothing to do. One has just to be. Have a rest and be ordinary and be natural. ” “ Zen is a totally different kind of religion. It brings humanness to religion. It is not bothered about anything superhuman; its whole concern is how to make ordinary life a blessing. ” “ Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. ” “ Do not seek the truth. Only cease to cherish opinions. ” “ Zen is all-inclusive. It never denies, it never says no to anything; it accepts everything and transforms it into a higher reality. ” “ Zen says: be empty. Look without any idea. Look into the nature of things but with no idea, with no prejudice, with no presupposition. ” “ Zen is a kind of unlearning. It teaches you how to drop that which you have learned, how to become unskillful again, how to become a child again, how to start existing without mind again, how to be here without any mind. ” “ Zen is not morality, it is aesthetics. It does not impose a code of morality. it does not give you any commandments: "do this, don't do that." ” “ The ego is nothing other than the focus of conscious attention. ” “ I come to realize that mind is no other than mountains and rivers and the great wide earth, the sun and the moon and stars. ” “ To what shall I liken the world? Moonlight, reflected in dewdrops. Shaken from a crane's bill. ” “ Zen is non-serious. Zen has a tremendous sense of humor. No other religion has evolved so much that it can have that sense of humor. ” “ The modern mind has lost all capacity to wonder. It has lost all capacity to look into the mysterious, into the miraculous - because of knowledge, because it thinks it knows. ” “ Zen says that if you drop knowledge - and within knowledge everything is included; your name, your identity, everything, because this has been given to you by others - if you drop all that has been given by others, you will have a totally different quality to your being: innocence. This will be a crucifixion of the persona, the personality, and there will be a resurrection of your innocence. You will become a child again, reborn. ” “ Meaning is man-created. And because you constantly look for meaning, you start to feel meaninglessness. ” “ Zen people love Buddha so tremendously that they can even play jokes upon him. It is out of great love; they are not afraid. ” “ This is the way of Zen, not to say things to their completion. This has to be understood; it is a very important methodology. Not to say everything means to give an opportunity to the listener to complete it. All answers are incomplete. The master has only given you a direction... By the time you reach the limit, you will know what is going to remain. This way, if somebody is trying to understand Zen intellectually he will fail. It is not an answer to the question but something more than the answer. It is indicating the very reality.... The buddha nature is not something far away - your very consciousness is buddha nature. And your consciousness can witness these things which constitute the world. The world will end but the mirror will remain, mirroring nothing. ” “ Zen is not a philosophy, it is poetry. It does not propose, it simply persuades. It does not argue, it simply sings its own song. ” “ The disciple is not hankering for knowledge; he wants to see, not to know. He wants to be. He is no longer interested in having more knowledge; he wants to have more being. ” “ All that is great cannot be possessed - and that is one of the most foolish things man goes on doing. We want to possess. ” |
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