Quotes about zen
A collection of quotes on the topic of zen, thing, master, doing.
Quotes about zen

“I have lived with several Zen masters -- all of them cats.”
Source: The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

Introduction
One Minute Nonsense (1992)
Context: The Master in these tales is not a single person. He is a Hindu Guru, a Zen Roshi, a Taoist Sage, a Jewish Rabbi, a Christian Monk, a Sufi Mystic. He is Lao-tzu and Socrates; Buddha and Jesus; Zarathustra and Mohammed. His teaching is found in the seventh century B. C. and the twentieth century A. D. His wisdom belongs to East and West alike. Do his historical antecedents really matter? History, after all, is the record of appearances, not Reality; of doctrines, not of Silence.

“A true Zen saying: "Nothing is what I want.”

“One has to reach to the absolute state of awareness: that is Zen.”
Walking in Zen, Sitting in Zen (1982)
Context: One has to reach to the absolute state of awareness: that is Zen. You cannot do it every morning for a few minutes or for half an hour and then forget all about it. It has to become like your heartbeat. You have to sit in it, you have to walk in it. Yes, you have even to sleep in it.

Japan, The Ambiguous, and Myself (1994)
Context: Under that title Kawabata talked about a unique kind of mysticism which is found not only in Japanese thought but also more widely Oriental thought. By 'unique' I mean here a tendency towards Zen Buddhism. Even as a twentieth-century writer Kawabata depicts his state of mind in terms of the poems written by medieval Zen monks. Most of these poems are concerned with the linguistic impossibility of telling truth. According to such poems words are confined within their closed shells. The readers can not expect that words will ever come out of these poems and get through to us. One can never understand or feel sympathetic towards these Zen poems except by giving oneself up and willingly penetrating into the closed shells of those words.

“The only Zen you find on tops of mountains is the Zen you bring there.”
Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Ch. 20
Context: Zen is the "spirit of the valley." The only Zen you find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there.

“Zen masters say you cannot see your reflection in running water, only in still water.”
Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Ariel: The Restored Edition
“I just had to stay cool. Zen. No punching in the face. Punching would not be Zen.”
Source: Magic Bleeds

Zen: Dawn in the West (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1980), p. 83.

Source: 1960's, What is Pop Art? Interviews with eight painters' (1963), pp. 25-27

As quoted in Zen and the Art of Systems Analysis : Meditations on Computer Systems Development (2002) by Patrick McDermott, p. xix
Source: Knowledge Assets, 1998, p. 124; As cited in: Ortiz et al. (2006)
Los Angeles, (September 2016)[citation needed]
Guan Yin Citta Dharma Door

“The trick is to be Zen about it. Winning is sometimes not the prize”
On Twitter before the 2009 Tony Awards, as quoted by Canada East/Associated Press. Notable quotes from 2009 Tony Awards. 8 June 2009. http://www.canadaeast.com/entertainment/article/692573
Source: The Albuquerque Turkey (2011), Chapter 17
10 October 2013
Special Interview by People' Daily, Europe Edition

Source: Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation (1999), pp. 48-49

On singing. Southern Courier, February 2010 http://southern-courier.whereilive.com.au/lifestyle/story/body-on-the-line/

Japan, the Beautiful and Myself (1969)

“When other sects speak well of Zen, the first thing that they praise is its poverty.”
III, 7
Shobogenzo Zuimonki (1238)
Modern Buddhism: The Path of Compassion and Wisdom (2011)

Quote of Lichtenstein in: Interview by G.R. Swenson (1963); as quoted in Painters on Painting, Eric Protter (1971) p. 263
1960's

"Go To Sleep"
Albums, Food & Liquor II: The Great American Rap Album (2012)

"Sayings of Daikaku" in: Trevor Leggett. Zen and the Ways, 1978. p. 58

1980's, I don't necessarily desire a perfect photography,' 1981
Japanese Death Poems. Compiled by Yoel Hoffmann. ISBN 978-0-8048-3179-6; Quoted in: Lawrence Winkler. Samurai Road. 2016. p. 25

Quote in 'Silence: lectures and writings by Cage, John', Publisher Middletown, Conn. Wesleyan University Press, June 1961, x/SILENCE
1960s

as cited in Zen Skin, Zen Marrow (Oxford: 2008), p. 134

Quote in: 'Silence: lectures and writings by John Cage'; publisher Middletown, Conn. Wesleyan University Press, June 1961, Foreword/ix
1960s
Variant quotes:
I've rediscovered the part of my brain that can't decode anything, that can't add, that can't work from a verbalized concept, that doesn't know anything about Zen eternity and gets bored and changes, that isn't worried about being commercial or avant-garde or serial or any other little category. Beauty is enough.
Beauty is Revolution (1980)
Source: Jane Weiner LePage (1983) Women composers, conductors, and musicians of the twentieth century: selected biographies. p. 14

Source: Short fiction, Thomas the Proclaimer (1972), Chapter 3, “The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters” (p. 76)
Source: Henri Cartier-Bresson: Interviews and Conversations, 1951-1998, Only Geometricians May Enter: Interview with Yves Bourde (1974), p. 65

Not Always So (page 95)
Not Always So, practicing the true spirit of Zen (2002)

Jusqu'à maintenant, j'avais mal compris le Satori, ou l'objectif final du bouddhisme zen.
Je pensais que le satori est de mourir sans peur à tout moment. Mais il est fausse supposition.
Le satori est de vivre sereinement en tout temps.
Byōshō-rokushaku

Interview with William Warren Bartley, cited in [Bartley, William Warren, w:William Warren Bartley, Werner Erhard: the Transformation of a Man: the Founding of est, Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1978, New York, 121, 0-517-53502-5]

This appears in what could be either a paraphrase, a quote, or a re-translation of Pirsig in My Mercedes Is Not for Sale : From Amsterdam to Ouagadougou : An Auto-misadventure Across the Sahara (2006) by Jeroen van Bergeijk, in a 2008 translation books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=pIOcbS2Pl8kC&pg=PA26; Dutch original: books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=4zIzAgAAQBAJ&q=geoefende.
Disputed

"G.O.D. (Gaining One's Definition)" (Track 7)
Albums, One Day It'll All Make Sense (1997)

Japan, the Beautiful and Myself (1969)

Online interview http://www.zen-deshimaru.com/EN/sangha/deshimaru/q-r/0101.htm
Context: Religions remain what they are. Zen is meditation. Meditation is the foundation of every religion. People today feel an intense need to go back to the source of religious life, to the pure essence in the depths of themselves which they can discover only through actually experiencing it. They also need to be able to concentrate their minds in order to find the highest wisdom and freedom, which is spiritual in nature, in their efforts to deal with the influences of every description imposed upon them by their environment. Human wisdom alone is not enough, it is not complete. Only universal truth can provide the highest wisdom. Take away the word Zen and put Truth or Order of the Universe in its place.

Japan, the Beautiful and Myself (1969)
Context: The Zen disciple sits for long hours silent and motionless, with his eyes closed. Presently he enters a state of impassivity, free from all ideas and all thoughts. He departs from the self and enters the realm of nothingness. This is not the nothingness or the emptiness of the West. It is rather the reverse, a universe of the spirit in which everything communicates freely with everything, transcending bounds, limitless. There are of course masters of Zen, and the disciple is brought toward enlightenment by exchanging questions and answers with his master, and he studies the scriptures. The disciple must, however, always be lord of his own thoughts, and must attain enlightenment through his own efforts. And the emphasis is less upon reason and argument than upon intuition, immediate feeling. Enlightenment comes not from teaching but through the eye awakened inwardly. Truth is in "the discarding of words", it lies "outside words". And so we have the extreme of "silence like thunder", in the Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra.

“Zen is not a particular state but the normal state: silent, peaceful, unagitated.”
As quoted in The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Buddhist Wisdom (2000) by Gill Farrer Halls, p. 162
Context: Zen is not a particular state but the normal state: silent, peaceful, unagitated. In Zazen neither intention, analysis, specific effort nor imagination take place. It's enough just to be without hypocrisy, dogmatism, arrogance — embracing all opposites.

Japan, the Beautiful and Myself (1969)
Context: "If you meet a Buddha, kill him. If you meet a patriarch of the law, kill him."
This is a well-known Zen motto. If Buddhism is divided generally into the sects that believe in salvation by faith and those that believe in salvation by one's own efforts, then of course there must be such violent utterances in Zen, which insists upon salvation by one's own efforts. On the other side, the side of salvation by faith, Shinran, the founder of the Shin sect, once said: "The good shall be reborn in paradise, and how much more shall it be so with the bad." This view of things has something in common with Ikkyu's world of the Buddha and world of the devil, and yet at heart the two have their different inclinations. Shinran also said: "I shall not take a single disciple."
"If you meet a Buddha, kill him. If you meet a patriarch of the law, kill him." "I shall not take a single disciple." In these two statements, perhaps, is the rigorous fate of art.

Japanese Death Poems. Compiled by Yoel Hoffmann. ISBN 978-0-8048-3179-6

Part Troll (2004)

“Religions remain what they are. Zen is meditation. Meditation is the foundation of every religion.”
Online interview http://www.zen-deshimaru.com/EN/sangha/deshimaru/q-r/0101.htm
Context: Religions remain what they are. Zen is meditation. Meditation is the foundation of every religion. People today feel an intense need to go back to the source of religious life, to the pure essence in the depths of themselves which they can discover only through actually experiencing it. They also need to be able to concentrate their minds in order to find the highest wisdom and freedom, which is spiritual in nature, in their efforts to deal with the influences of every description imposed upon them by their environment. Human wisdom alone is not enough, it is not complete. Only universal truth can provide the highest wisdom. Take away the word Zen and put Truth or Order of the Universe in its place.

"The Way Of Chuang Tzu".
The Way of Chuang-Tzŭ (1965)
Context: The humor, the sophistication, the literary genius, and philosophical insight of Chuang Tzu are evident to anyone who samples his work. But before one can begin to understand even a little of his subtlety, one must situate him in his cultural and historical context. That is to say that one must see him against the background of the Confucianism which he did not hesitate to ridicule, along with all the other sedate and accepted schools of Chinese thought, from that of Mo Ti to that of Chuang's contemporary, friend, and constant opponent, the logician Hui Tzu. One must also see him in relation to what followed him, because it would be a great mistake to confuse the Taoism of Chuang Tzu with the popular, de generate amalgam of superstition, alchemy, magic, and health culture which Taoism later became.
The true inheritors of the thought and spirit of Chuang Tzu are the Chinese Zen Buddhists of the Tang period (7th to 10th centuries A. D.). But Chuang Tzu continued to exert an influence on all cultured Chinese thought, since he never ceased to be recognized as one of the great writers and think ers of the classical period. The subtle, sophisticated, mystical Taoism of Chuang Tzu and Lao Tzu has left a permanent mark on all Chinese culture and on the Chinese character itself. There have never been lacking authorities like Daisetz T. Suzuki, the Japanese Zen scholar, who declare Chuang Tzu to be the very greatest of the Chinese philosophers. There is no question that the kind of thought and culture represented by Chuang Tzu was what transformed highly speculative Indian Buddhism into the humorous, iconoclastic, and totally practical kind of Buddhism that was to flourish in China and in Japan in the various schools of Zen. Zen throws light on Chuang Tzu, and Chuang Tzu throws light on Zen.

Brisbane International 2016 http://www.smh.com.au/sport/tennis/brisbane-international-2016-federers-advice-to-kyrgios-and-tomic-twins-torment-and-other-stories-from-a-night-on-stage-with-sharapova-20160103-glyg4o.html

Alan Watts, on Zen (2015) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh-3FJs2pz8
Context: I want to make one thing absolutely clear. I am not a Zen Buddhist, I am not advocating Zen Buddhism, I am not trying to convert anyone to it. I have nothing to sell. I'm an entertainer. That is to say, in the same sense, that when you go to a concert and you listen to someone play Mozart, he has nothing to sell except the sound of the music. He doesn’t want to convert you to anything. He doesn’t want you to join an organization in favor of Mozart's music as opposed to, say, Beethoven's. And I approach you in the same spirit as a musician with his piano or a violinist with his violin. I just want you to enjoy a point of view that I enjoy.

Lecture in Los Altos, CA (1 September 1967) http://www.shunryusuzuki.com/suzuki/transcripts-pdf/67-pdf/67-08-31U.pdf
Context: What is true zazen? What do you mean by Zen becomes Zen and you become you? You become you is a very important point. You become you. When you become you, even though you are in bed, you may not be you most of the time. Even though you are sitting here, I wonder whether you are you in its true sense. So to be you is zazen.

“South of Mount Sumeru
Who understands my Zen?
Call Master Kido over-
He's not worth a cent.”
Lucien Stryk. Encounter with Zen: writings on poetry and Zen, 1981. p. 66.

The Paris Review interview (1982)
Context: My Zen master, because I’ve studied Zen for a long time, told me that every one (and all the stories weren’t written then) of the Mary Poppins stories is in essence a Zen story. And someone else, who is a bit of a Don Juan, told me that every one of the stories is a moment of tremendous sexual passion, because it begins with such tension and then it is reconciled and resolved in a way that is gloriously sensual. … A great friend of mine at the beginning of our friendship (he was himself a poet) said to me very defiantly, “I have to tell you that I loathe children’s books.” And I said to him, “Well, won’t you just read this just for my sake?” And he said grumpily, “Oh, very well, send it to me.” I did, and I got a letter back saying: “Why didn’t you tell me? Mary Poppins with her cool green core of sex has me enthralled forever.”

Foreward to The Secret Oral Teachings in the Tibetan Buddhist Sects (1964)], by Alexandra David Neel

Online interview "Questions to Master Deshimaru" at zen-deshimaru.com https://web.archive.org/web/20111008034614/http://www.zen-deshimaru.com/EN/sangha/deshimaru/q-r/0101.htm
Source: The Man Who Never Missed (1985), Chapter 10 (p. 87)

Source: undated quotes, Tàpies, Werke auf Papier 1943 – 2003,' (2004), p. 28.

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Nine, Flying and Seeing: New Ways to Learn

“Zen is the "spirit of the valley."”
The only Zen you find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there.
Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Ch. 20