Zen Quotes

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.

Each situation is a blossom to be picked with a curious spirit.

I felt a taste of that other kind of contentment that doesn't come from acquiring information or getting praise or building a resume, the kind that is just there, like a hidden pearl.

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

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

Those who are attached only to the result of their effort will not have any chance to appreciate it, because the result will never come.

A mind full of preconceived ideas, subjective intentions, or habits it not open to things as they are.

We emphasize straightforwardness. You should be true to your feelings, and to your mind, expressing yourself without any reservations. This helps the listener to understand more easily.

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

The true purpose [of Zen] is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes... Zen practice is to open up our small mind.

If you are upset or nervous, that is proof you lack something. Do not be sad or gloomy - foster virtue, feel compassion, and you can save even devils.

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

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

Zen is nothing to get excited about.

To live in the realm of Buddha nature means to die as a small being, moment after moment.

In your practice you should accept everything as it is, giving to each thing the same respect given to a Buddha.

The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there.

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

To all appearances he was just drifting. In actuality he was just drifting.

We have our Arts so we won't die of Truth

When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called a Religion.

Like Salvador Dali’s paintings of watches melting in the sand, time wanders at its own curious pace whenever you’re on vacation in a foreign country.

Find a way to learn something from every disappointment.

Barely halfway back, exhaustion sets in. What if I don’t make it? An edge of panic gets intercepted by a calmer inner voice: Look behind you.

Out here on the water, it’s a fine line between feeling in control and losing it altogether.

Instead of falling, I am dancing with the wind.

Flip a coin. Life or death. Heads or tails. You never know.

If there’s a takeaway from working here, it’s an understand that, as bioorganisms, we are a walking time bomb programed for cellular self-destruction. Not if, when.

Lucid dreams often feel like this—as if you are observing yourself from a point over your shoulders-arm flexed, hands curving around the boom, breathing, in three dimensional silence.

There are two kinds of special events: planned and unplanned.

Inside, my spirit is sparkling like foam on the crest of a wave at high tide under a full moon.

Swirling around my ears, the wind and I whooping at the sea, picking up speed, breathing it all in. An act of loving life.

Soul-to-soul contact sweeps through, like a tsunami, leaving in its wake just this: unconditional surrender and overwhelming gentleness.

Of all the things I wish for her, above all, I want her to know and love the sea.

A wide-angle view of sails sparkling white against a cobalt sky as light dances, silver on the water. Like art, it soothes the edge, allowing you to see something simple from a different perspective.

I took up windsurfing to explore my own courage.

If you didn’t fall down, you would never have learned how to pick yourself up.

Every misfortune is a blessing in disguise.

My former identity was lying around, somewhere, fragmented and buried, like shards from an earlier civilization.

Unraveling life lessons from just the past few years would take many more years. Lessons unlearned would pass with me, when I went through that door, to be completed in some future lifetime.

The human psyche is a self-correcting mechanism.

The only sharks I’m afraid of are the ones that wear three-piece suits and write memos.

An intuitive insight or concept can often turn out to be an unexpected success.

Where are you?’‘I am between the light and the waves.

Windsurfing, the sound of the word contains all the mystery of a solitary buoy in the fog, echoing across the water at the end of the day.

If you understand, things are just as they are... If you do not understand, things are just as they are...

HOUSE Grow high. The devil can't find you. Grow deep. Buddha can't find you. Build a house and live there. Gourd creepers will climb over it, their flowers dazzling at midnight.

Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me. After the explosion, I spend the rest of the day putting the pieces together.

A person in such a hurry seldom gets good results

We have artists with no scientific knowledge and scientists with noartistic knowledge and both with no spiritual sense of gravity at all, and the result is not just bad, it is ghastly.