Quotes about zen

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

Quotes about zen

Dogen photo
Bodhidharma photo

“Not thinking about anything is Zen. Once you know this, walking, sitting, or lying down, everything you do is Zen.”

Bodhidharma (483–540) Chinese philosopher and Buddhist Monk

Source: The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma

Eckhart Tolle photo

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

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

Douglas Adams photo
Anthony de Mello photo

“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.”

Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer

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.

Terry Pratchett photo
Frank Zappa photo

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

Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer
Mercedes Lackey photo
Jane Hirshfield photo
Rajneesh photo

“One has to reach to the absolute state of awareness: that is Zen.”

Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement

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.

Kenzaburō Ōe photo

“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.”

Kenzaburō Ōe (1935) Japanese author

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.

Eckhart Tolle photo
D.T. Suzuki photo
Robert M. Pirsig photo

“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.

James Patterson photo

“Be calm. Be Zen. You are Buddha.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: Nevermore

Richelle Mead photo
Elizabeth Gilbert photo
Robert M. Pirsig photo
Sylvia Plath photo

“I am still raw.
I say I may be back.
You know what lies are for.

Even in your Zen heaven we shan't meet.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: Ariel: The Restored Edition

Chuck Palahniuk photo

“I just had to stay cool. Zen. No punching in the face. Punching would not be Zen.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bleeds

Philip Kapleau photo
Roy Lichtenstein photo
Taisen Deshimaru photo

“Harmonizing opposites by going back to their source is the distinctive quality of the Zen attitude, the Middle Way: embracing contradictions, making a synthesis of them, achieving balance.”

Taisen Deshimaru (1914–1982) Japanese Buddhist monk

As quoted in Zen and the Art of Systems Analysis : Meditations on Computer Systems Development (2002) by Patrick McDermott, p. xix

Aldous Huxley photo
Richard Rodríguez photo
Jane Fonda photo

“The trick is to be Zen about it. Winning is sometimes not the prize”

Jane Fonda (1937) American actress and activist

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

“Zen is a form of liberation - being liberated from Yin and Yang elements, and enabling you to remain calm and cool when you are troubled. Zen is not something definite and tangible, it is a refuge for mental solace. Zen is about concentration of mind. It is a profound culture, enabling people to gain spiritual tranqulity and be awakened. Even though not a word is spoken, it enables one to gain a thorough understanding of the truth of life. This is what we call the harmony between Yin and Yang. It is like a substance deep in your soul, generating a kind of wisdom and energy in your mind. It is also a kind of energy of self-confidence, helping you to achieve self-emancipation, self-regulation and self-perfection, leading you to the path of success. As such, Buddhism talks about ‘Faith, Commitment, and Action’. The theory, when applied in the human realm, is all about Zen. Concentration gives rise to wisdom. With concentration, the mind will be focused and it will not be drifting apart. Hence, the problem of schizophrenia will not arise. Zen culture is about the state of mind. It is a kind of positive energy! Positive energy is a kind of compassion, which enables people to understand each other when they encounter problems, to understand the country and society at large, and to understand their family and children, colleagues and friends. In this way, people will be able to live in peaceful co-existence and remain calm when they are faced with problems. When you see things in perspective using rationality and positive energy, you are able to change your viewpoint pertaining to a certain issue. This is the moment Zen arises in your mind! In fact, Zen is within you. This theory is very profound.”

Jun Hong Lu (1959) Australian Buddhist leader

10 October 2013
Special Interview by People' Daily, Europe Edition

Parker Palmer photo
Charles Bukowski photo
Douglas Hofstadter photo
Davey Havok photo
Yasunari Kawabata photo
Dogen photo

“When other sects speak well of Zen, the first thing that they praise is its poverty.”

Dogen (1200–1253) Japanese Zen buddhist teacher

III, 7
Shobogenzo Zuimonki (1238)

Herbert Marcuse photo
Roy Lichtenstein photo
Lupe Fiasco photo

“Come across as very calm, mental state is Zen like. Always had a lot of heart, never been the tin type”

Lupe Fiasco (1982) rapper

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

Lanxi Daolong photo
Robert Rauschenberg photo

“All my life I taught Zen to the people -
Nine and seventy years.
He who sees not things as they are
Will never know Zen.”

Japanese Death Poems. Compiled by Yoel Hoffmann. ISBN 978-0-8048-3179-6; Quoted in: Lawrence Winkler. Samurai Road. 2016. p. 25

John Cage photo
Keiji Nishitani photo

“In the religiosity of Zen Buddhism, demythologization of the mythical and existentialization of the scientific belong to one and the same process.”

Keiji Nishitani (1900–1990) Japanese philosopher

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

John Cage photo

“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 care about stylish notation, that makes melodies that have pitch and rhythm, 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.”

Beth Anderson (1950) American neo-romantic composer

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

Robert Silverberg photo
Douglas Hofstadter photo

“This type of paradox is quite characteristic of Zen. It is an attempt to "break the mind of logic."”

This statement refers to a koan
Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (1979)

Shunryu Suzuki photo
Masaoka Shiki photo

“Until now, I had misunderstood the Satori, enlightenment of Zen Buddhism.
I had thought that satori is to die without fear anytime. But it is a wrong guess.
The satori is to live unconcernedly anytime.”

Masaoka Shiki (1867–1902) Japanese poet, author, and literary critic in Meiji period Japan

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

Huston Smith photo
Werner Erhard photo

“Of all the disciplines that I studied, practiced, learned, Zen was the essential one. It was not so much an influence on me, rather it created space. It allowed those things that were there to be there. It gave some form to my experience. And it built up in me the critical mass from which was kindled the experience that produced est.”

Werner Erhard (1935) Critical Thinker and Author

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]

Charles Tart photo
Robert M. Pirsig photo

“To an experienced Zen Buddhist, asking if one believes in Zen or one believes in the Buddha, sounds a little ludicrous, like asking if one believes in air or water. Similarly Quality is not something you believe in, Quality is something you experience.”

Robert M. Pirsig (1928–2017) American writer and philosopher

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

Common (rapper) photo
Gene Youngblood photo
Yasunari Kawabata photo

“"Among those who give thoughts to things, is there one who does not think of suicide?" With me was the knowledge that that fellow Ikkyu twice contemplated suicide. I have "that fellow", because the priest Ikkyu is known even to children as a most amusing person, and because anecdotes about his limitlessly eccentric behavior have come down to us in ample numbers. It is said of him that children climbed his knee to stroke his beard, that wild birds took feed from his hand. It would seem from all this that he was the ultimate in mindlessness, that he was an approachable and gentle sort of priest. As a matter of fact he was the most severe and profound of Zen priests. Said to have been the son of an emperor, he entered a temple at the age of six, and early showed his genius as a poetic prodigy. At the same time he was troubled with the deepest of doubts about religion and life. "If there is a god, let him help me. If there is none, let me throw myself to the bottom of the lake and become food for fishes." Leaving behind these words he sought to throw himself into a lake, but was held back. … He gave his collected poetry the title "Collection of the Roiling Clouds", and himself used the expression "Roiling Clouds" as a pen name. In his collection and its successor are poems quite without parallel in the Chinese and especially the Zen poetry of the Japanese middle ages, erotic poems and poems about the secrets of the bedchamber that leave one in utter astonishment. He sought, by eating fish and drinking spirits and having commerce with women, to go beyond the rules and proscriptions of the Zen of his day, and to seek liberation from them, and thus, turning against established religious forms, he sought in the pursuit of Zen the revival and affirmation of the essence of life, of human existence, in a day civil war and moral collapse.”

Yasunari Kawabata (1899–1972) Japanese author, Nobel Prize winner

Japan, the Beautiful and Myself (1969)

Shunryu Suzuki photo
Alan Watts photo
Taisen Deshimaru photo

“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.”

Taisen Deshimaru (1914–1982) Japanese Buddhist monk

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.

Yasunari Kawabata photo

“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.”

Yasunari Kawabata (1899–1972) Japanese author, Nobel Prize winner

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.

Taisen Deshimaru photo

“Zen is not a particular state but the normal state: silent, peaceful, unagitated.”

Taisen Deshimaru (1914–1982) Japanese Buddhist monk

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.

Yasunari Kawabata photo

“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.”

Yasunari Kawabata (1899–1972) Japanese author, Nobel Prize winner

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.

Ikkyu photo

“In all the kingdom southward
From the center of the earth
Where is he who understands my Zen?
Should the master Kido himself appear
He wouldn't be worth a worn-out cent.”

Ikkyu (1394–1481) Japanese Buddhist monk

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

Bill Bailey photo

“[responding to scattered audience applause] Ah, lovely: the ripple, the ripple there. That's nearly the Zen clap of acceptance there, wasn't it?”

Bill Bailey (1965) English comedian, musician, actor, TV and radio presenter and author

Part Troll (2004)

Taisen Deshimaru photo

“Religions remain what they are. Zen is meditation. Meditation is the foundation of every religion.”

Taisen Deshimaru (1914–1982) Japanese Buddhist monk

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.

Thomas Merton photo

“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.”

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author

"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.

Roger Federer photo

“Today, I'm totally zen.”

Roger Federer (1981) Swiss tennis player

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 photo

“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.”

Alan Watts (1915–1973) British philosopher, writer and speaker

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.

Shunryu Suzuki photo

“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.”

Shunryu Suzuki (1904–1971) Japanese Buddhist missionary

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.

Ikkyu photo

“South of Mount Sumeru
Who understands my Zen?
Call Master Kido over-
He's not worth a cent.”

Ikkyu (1394–1481) Japanese Buddhist monk

Lucien Stryk. Encounter with Zen: writings on poetry and Zen, 1981. p. 66.

P. L. Travers photo

“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.”

P. L. Travers (1899–1996) Australian-British novelist, actress and journalist

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.”

Alan Watts photo
Taisen Deshimaru photo
Antoni Tàpies photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo
Robert M. Pirsig photo

“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