Zen Buddhism Quotes: top 100 famous quotes about Zen Buddhism

Zen Buddhism Quotes & Sayings

Happy to read and share the best inspirational Zen Buddhism quotes, sayings and quotations on Wise Famous Quotes.

Tantric Zen is the exploration of everything, since everything is a part of enlightenment. — Frederick Lenz

Always stay in your own movie. — Ken Kesey

Naturally, the Zen Master Rama philosophy is to have a high state of awareness and material success. — Frederick Lenz

Perfection itself is not the ultimate goal
but the ultimate condition of life. — Eric Micha'el Leventhal

Zen and Buddhism have produced martial arts, because of the Buddhist injunction against weapons. — Frederick Lenz

How much does he lack himself who must have many things? — Sen No Rikyu

The only way we can be free in each moment is to become what each moment is. — Steve Hagen

You will bring yourself the suffering you need to bring yourself so that you may awaken. — T. Scott McLeod

With passions stilled and one's nature firm, all destinies are in harmony; When the full moon of contemplation is reached you will be pure. — Wu Cheng'en

Zen professes
itself to be the spirit of Buddhism, but in fact it is the spirit of all
religions and philosophies, — D.T. Suzuki

Let me give you a wonderful Zen practice. Wake up in the morning ... look in the mirror, and laugh at yourself. — Bernie Glassman

Can the water in the valleys ever stop and rest?
When the water finally reaches the sea, it becomes great waves. — Francis Harold Cook

Being in touch with oneself is the meaning of meditation, to be aware of what is going on in your body, in your feelings, in your mind. — Thich Nhat Hanh

Zen students see themselves as athletes. Their competitive sport is enlightenment; only with enlightenment do we compete. — Frederick Lenz

We have all sorts of stories about heaven and hell, about oblivion and nothingness, about 'coming back,' and so on. But they are all stories. — Steve Hagen

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

Tantric Zen is not being kinky; nor is it being conservative and austere. It is eclectic. It is a real mixture of all things. — Frederick Lenz

Whatever the world dishes up, we take it on
not on our own terms, but on the world's. — Steve Hagen

We find what's in our own heads. — T. Scott McLeod

The Buddha is found in other people - even the ones we do not like very much. — Francis Harold Cook

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

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

Render unto meditation the things that are meditation's, and unto medication the things that are medication's. — Barry Graham

What I term Zen, old Zen, the original face of Zen, new Zen, pure Zen, or Tantric Zen is - Zen in its essence. — Frederick Lenz

We should live every day like people who have just been rescued from the moon. — Thich Nhat Hanh

It is necessary to have a very liberal and simultaneously very conservative mentality to practice Tantric Zen. — Frederick Lenz

Zen Buddhism does not preach. Sermons remain words. It waits until people feel stifled and insecure, driven by a secret longing. — Eugen Herrigel

Where there are humans,
You'll find flies,
And Buddhas. — Kobayashi Issa

Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun. — Alan W. Watts

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

Let whatever happens, be what needs to happen, so that I may awaken. — T. Scott McLeod

If you don't practice presence, you never learn how to have busyness facilitate accomplishment. — Darrell Calkins

Life gives you exactly what you need to awaken. — T. Scott McLeod

Forever is not an idea or a concept, it is reality. All of the things here come from forever. We call forever nirvana in Zen. — Frederick Lenz

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

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

This will never come again — Steve Hagen

Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet. — Thich Nhat Hanh

Anywhere we go, we will have our self with us; we cannot escape ourselves. — Thich Nhat Hanh

I'm a Zen Master. I'm an occult teacher. I teach people how to become that, how to be perfect. — Frederick Lenz

Sometimes it takes a miracle to remind us that the only permanent condition is that of impermanence. — Eric Micha'el Leventhal

The most expected thing you can expect is what's unexpected. — Dick Allen

All instruction is but as a finger pointing to the moon; and he whose gaze is fixed upon the pointer will never see beyond. — Masaharu Anesaki

[E]ven in getting the wonderful things we long for, we tend to live in want of something more[.] — Steve Hagen

In Zen we strive to bring both the mind and the body into perfect combination, so that there is no intrinsic difference between them. — Frederick Lenz

I don't know how much you know about Zen, but you'll know less when I'm done with you. — Frederick Lenz

The mind is limitless, in its creations. — T. Scott McLeod

[F]ast intercommunication between points is making all points the same point. — Alan W. Watts

In Tantric Zen there is no rule. There is only your immediate experience. — Frederick Lenz

How can a hard and fast view of a world that is never hard and fast possibly be accurate? — Steve Hagen

Truth is not ... something to believe or disbelieve. The things we believe are always less than Truth[.] — Steve Hagen

A peaceful mind appreciates the present moment as the living embodiment of naked perfection, rather than a means to future attainment. — Eric Micha'el Leventhal

Zen Buddhism is a discipline where belief isn't necessary. — David Sylvian

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

Tantric Zen is the awareness of the infinitude of all things. To gain that awareness, to be it, is enlightenment. — Frederick Lenz

Good and bad aren't absolutes. They are beliefs, judgements, ideas based on limited knowledge as well as on the inclinations of our minds. — Steve Hagen

When you catch yourself slipping into a pool of negativity, notice how it derives from nothing other than resistance to the current situation. — Donna Quesada

In Tantric Zen it doesn't matter but it does ... — Frederick Lenz

Belief is at best an educated, informed conjecture about Reality. — Steve Hagen

We die, he said.
We die, I said. And kn owing this how do we live?
Knowing this, we live.
We live. — Alan Spence

If your idea of good opposes something else, you can be sure that [it] is not absolute or certain. — Steve Hagen

Zen is Tantric Buddhism, Vajrayana is tantric Buddhism - these are various forms of it. Tantric Buddhism simply means cutting to the chase. — Frederick Lenz

Any good athletic is always in a state of perpetual training, as is the Zen student. — Frederick Lenz

The son needs the father to have access to his source, and the father needs the son to have access to the future and the infinite. — Thich Nhat Hanh

Tantric Zen is more suited for this age that we live in. It give you rules, but in a gentle way. It's not as demanding. — Frederick Lenz

For eternally and always there is only now, one and the same now; the present is the only thing that has no end. — Alan W. Watts

Your immediate experience is Tantric Zen. How aware are you of your immediate experience? - Probably not that aware. — Frederick Lenz

The light is already there. In Zen Buddhism there's a little speck of dust on the mirror, and that's us. — Frederick Lenz

The thinking brain influences the body's responses and it makes a neat little loop. — Brad Warner

Letting go takes a lot of courage sometimes. But once you let go, happiness comes very quickly. You won't have to go around search for it. — Thich Nhat Hanh

To forget the self is to remember that we don't exist alone, but in relation to other people, to other creatures, to the planet, and to the universe. — Steve Hagen

When angry, count to Zen. — Leonard Scheff

Old age and death are in the natural course of things. There is nothing a doctor can do about them. — Muso Soseki

Maybe it's something which can't be defined," Enso Roshi says. "Maybe it's a question, to be lived. — T. Scott McLeod

We can only be here. We can't leave. We are always here. — Steve Hagen

Once upon a time,
there was a Zen sign
at every small railway crossing in America

Stop. Look. And listen. — Dick Allen

Tantric Zen is a state of mind — Frederick Lenz

In Tantric Zen you can be humorous and make fun of anything or you can be very serious. — Frederick Lenz

Tantric Zen leads to illumination and fun right here and now, which is why I like it. — Frederick Lenz

When mountain-climbing is made too easy, the spiritual effect the mountain exercises vanishes into the air. — D.T. Suzuki

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

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

itt was snowing as if you could hear wolves howling — Dick Allen

Tantric Zen, and the people who practice it, of course, make some people feel extremely uncomfortable. — Frederick Lenz

It is both dangerous and absurd for our world to be a group of communions mutually excommunicate. — Alan W. Watts

To practice Zen Buddhism is to train oneself to eliminate hatred, anger and selfishness and to develop loving-kindness towards all. — Thich Thien-An

I stole this from Zen Master Suzuki Roshi: If it's not paradoxical it's not true! — C.B. Murphy

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

What is Tantric Zen? Well, I don't think I can give you a straight answer, since I don't happen to be a very straight Zen master. — Frederick Lenz

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

Belief may serve as a useful stopgap measure in the absence of actual experience, but once you see ... [it] becomes unnecessary. — Steve Hagen

Good times come and go. And bad times do the same. — Steve Hagen

The most important thing Zen Buddhism teaches us is that we are already originally enlightened. This must never be forgotten. — Clara Taylor

Essays in Zen Buddhism — Alan W. Watts

What is perfect? From the Zen mind, perfection is not being there. — Frederick Lenz

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

The way is not clear, and it is when you do not have clarity, when this is allowed, that you will finally have clarity. — T. Scott McLeod

Can you allow yourself to be impaled on the present moment? — T. Scott McLeod

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

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