Daily Zen Meditation Quotes & Sayings

It is often the simple daily practices that influence our lives in dramatic ways. — Alaric Hutchinson

To practice the Way single heartedly is, in itself, enlightenment. There is no gap between practice and enlightenment and daily life. This stripped-down Buddhist aesthetic pervades all aspects of St Zen. Most St Zen temples eschew the fantastic sculptures of bodhisattvas with their jewelry and fluttering robes. Instead, Zen emphasizes rock gardens, green-tea caffeine-infused meditation, and single-mindedness. — Marie Mutsuki Mockett

A big group of daily friends or a white painted house with bills and mirrors, are not a necessity to me - but an intelligent conversation while sharing another coffee, is. — Charlotte Eriksson

Peace never hurries. To rush or force is contradictory to the very essence of peace. — Alaric Hutchinson

Sports and athletics can be a path in Zen, in concordance with daily practice of zazen meditation. You need to move with your spirit, not just with your body. — Frederick Lenz

If there is anything Zen strongly emphasizes it is the attainment of freedom; that is, freedom from all unnatural encumbrances. Meditation is something artificially put on; it does not belong to the native activity of the mind. Upon what do the fowls of the air meditate? Upon what do the fish in the water meditate? They fly; they swim. Is not that enough? Who wants to fix his mind on the unity of God and man, or on the nothingness of life? Who wants to be arrested in the daily manifestations of his life-activity by such meditations as the goodness of a divine being or the everlasting fire of hell? — D.T. Suzuki