Koan Zen Quotes & Sayings

Zen has lost its zip, if you will, or its nothingness and has become ritualistic Its established in monastaries with strict codes of koan study. — Frederick Lenz

It isn't that we're alone or not alone
whose voice do you want mine? yours? — Ikkyu

Wisteria hangs over the eaves like clumps of ghostly grapes. Euphorbia's pale blooms billow like sea froth. Blood grass twists upward, knifing the air, while underground its roots go berserk, goosing everything in their path. A magnolia, impatient with vulvic flesh, erupts in front of the living room window. The recovering terrorist
holding a watering can filled with equal parts fish fertilizer and water, paisley gloves right up over her freckled forearms, a straw hat with its big brim shading her eyes, old tennis shoes speckled with dew
moves through her front garden. Her face, she tells herself, like a Zen koan. The look of one lip smiling. — Zsuzsi Gartner

Do not descend, but rise above so ill-mannered a person. — Mary Lydon Simonsen

That stone Buddha deserves all the
birdshit it gets
I wave my skinny arms like a tall
flower in the wind — Ikkyu

Christopher, like most people, didn't like his universe being unfathomable, so I doubted that a Zen koan would help him. — Scarlett Thomas

You listen to people, you listen so deeply that you can hear their past lives,
The crackle of their funeral pyres, — Dick Allen

Well, I believe life is a Zen koan, that is, an unsolvable riddle. But the contemplation of that riddle - even though it cannot be solved - is, in itself, transformative. And if the contemplation is of high enough quality, you can merge with the divine. — Tom Robbins

I'd love to give you something
but what would help? — Ikkyu

Sanity and enlightenment ... I've been reading a new book Dogen's Genjo Koan: Three Commentaries, and it contains a commentary on Genjo Koan by Shunryu Suzuki, the author who wrote Zen Mind, Beginners Mind. He doesn't mention sanity at all but I think that one possible definition of enlightenment would be a kind of profound sanity, where being insane is no longer an option. — Brad Warner

Born born everything is always born
thinking about it try not to — Ikkyu

[Once Ummon asked a lesser light Are you a gardener> Yes it replied Why have turnips no roots> Ummon asked the gardener who could not reply Because said Ummon rainwater is plentiful] I think about this for a moment. Ummon's koan is not difficult now that I am regaining the knack of listening for the shadow of substance beneath the words. The little Zen parable is Ummon's way of saying, with some sarcasm, that the answer lies within science and within the antilogic which scientific answers so often provide. The rainwater comment answers everything and nothing, as so much of science has for so long. As Ummon and the other Masters teach, it explains why the giraffe evolved a long neck but never why the other animals did not. It explains why humankind evolved to intelligence, but not why the tree near the front gate refused to. — Dan Simmons

But in the secret's courts of man's hearts Atticus had no case. Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed. — Harper Lee

Even if she was Malachi's sister, he still wouldn't be discussing his business around her ass, and unbeknownst to everyone else, Nasir had security detail following her and her phones tapped. — Nako

Hearing a crow with no mouth
Cry in the deep
Darkness of the night,
I feel a longing for
My father before he was born. — Ikkyu

We're lost where the mind can't find us
utterly lost — Ikkyu

Human nature, for better or worse, always eventually comes to the fore again. And human nature likes and needs stories that are stories. — John C. Wright

I had worked for a newspaper of sorts, word got around, and I became editor of our local school newspaper, The Drum. I don't recall being given any choice in this matter; I think I was simply appointed. My second-in-command, Danny Emond, had even less interest in the paper than I did. Danny just liked the idea that Room 4, where we did our work, was near the girls' bathroom. "Someday I'll just go crazy and hack my way in there, Steve," he told me on more than one occasion. "Hack, hack, hack." Once he added, perhaps in an effort to justify himself: "The prettiest girls in school pull up their skirts in there." This struck me as so fundamentally stupid it might actually be wise, like a Zen Koan or an early story by John Updike. — Stephen King

The principle of avoiding conflict and never opposing an aggressor's strength head-on is the essence of aikido. We apply the same principle to problems that arise in life. The skilled aikidoist is as elusive as the truth of Zen; he makes himself into a koan - a puzzle which slips away the more one tries to solve it. He is like water in that he falls through the fingers of those who try to clutch him. Water does not hesitate before it yields, for the moment the fingers begin to close it moves away, not of its own strength, but by using the pressure applied to it. It is for this reason, perhaps, that one of the symbols for aikido is water. — Joe Hyams

A koan is like a riddle that's supposed to help you toward enlightenment in Zen Buddhism. For my answer, I wrote about this guy Banzan. He was walking through the market on day when he overheard someone ask a butcher for his best piece of meat. The butcher answered, "Everything in my shop is the best. You cannot find a piece of meat that is not the best." Upon hearing this, Banzan realized that there is no best and no worst, that those judgments have no real meaning because there is only was is, and poof, he reached enlightenment. — John Green

When you paint Spring, do not paint willows, plums, peaches, or apricots, but just paint Spring. To paint willows, plums, peaches, or apricots is to paint willows, plums, peaches, or apricots - it is not yet painting Spring. — Dogen

Don't wait for the man standing in the
snow
to cut off his arm help him now — Ikkyu

The best teacher you'll ever have is yourself. I'm not your teacher! I'm here only to show you the way towards what you already know, and also, show you a way to find out what you don't know but feel that it exists. — Irina Serban

Every day Zuigan used to call out to himself, "Master!" and then he answered himself, "Yes, Sir!" And he added, "Awake, Awake!" and then answered, "Yes, Sir! Yes, Sir!"
"From now onwards, do not be deceived by others!" "No, Sir! I will not, Sir!"

— Wumen Huikai

Sit and let your body relax. Find the rhythm of deep breathing that has worked best for you so far. Breathe in, breathe out. Be aware of your breath as we continue with this meditation. Close your eyes if you wish. Let the muscles in your face relax. Release the tension in your jaw. To release tension in your neck, let your head hang forward, and then roll it gently around, making sure to stretch your neck muscles often. We are going to empty your mind. Empty it of worries. Empty it of cares. We are going to just let go. With your eyes closed, feel your mind become a void. Let your concerns and stress slip away. You may wish to visualize darkness or light filling your mind. This is not a painful emptiness. It is a soothing absence of thought. Your mind is calm. Become aware of your body. Notice your breathing and heartbeat. Breathe and relax in the silence until you are ready to open your eyes. Repeat again for three minutes later in the — Alexis G. Roldan

If the Zen master sees that it will cause a person to progress, he will ask that person to do a task. The task is charged with power if it's performed properly. It's a koan between yourself and the Zen Master. — Frederick Lenz

In the potential of absurdity, hiding in the disparate combination of the various different subjects which in themselves are nothing but daily items equally in the exclusive representation of a normal item taken out of their usual context , is by far the most radical - in its effect comparable to a Japanese Zen koan - paradox to be witnessed, which modern art has produced, one of the most forceful impulses that generated from it. — Antoni Tapies

Clouds very high look
not one word helped them get up there — Ikkyu