Hakuin Zen Quotes & Sayings

I could never deny myself bein' an artist. — Joe Cocker

A couple of months ago, I gave my girlfriend some fancy lingerie, and she actually got mad at me. She said, 'Anthony, I think this is more of a gift for you than it is for me.' And I said, 'If you want to get technical, it was originally a gift for my last girlfriend.' — Anthony Jeselnik

It's like chopping down a huge tree of immense girth. You won't accomplish it with one swing of your axe. If you keep chopping away at it, though, and do not let up, eventually, whether it wants to or not, it will suddenly topple down. When that time comes, you could round up everyone you could find and pay them to hold the tree up, but they wouldn't be able to do it. It would still come crashing to the ground ... . But if the woodcutter stopped after one or two strokes of his axe to ask the third son of Mr. Chang, "Why doesn't this tree fall?" And after three or four more strokes stopped again to ask the fourth son of Mr. Li, "Why doesn't this tree fall?" he would never succeed in felling the tree. It is no different for someone who is practicing the Way. - ZEN MASTER HAKUIN — Robert Greene

If Jesus simply came to tell us what to do and provide moral instruction so we could try harder to please God, then his life would have been an utter failure. — Matt Perman

It is important never to separate love and knowledge, compassion and wisdom. A wisdom without compassion is closed upon itself and does not bear fruit. A compassion without wisdom is a madness and a cause of suffering. — Jean-Yves Leloup

People don't start wars, governments do. — Ronald Reagan