Zen Buddhist Quotes & Sayings

But for the first time, I had a religious identity. I had come home. And so I called myself a Zen Buddhist at the age of 18. — M. Scott Peck

To say one is revolutionary is a little like saying one is a Zen Buddhist - if you say you are, you probably aren't. — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

For a long time I didn't have a defined Dana doctrine to describe this approach; it was more a ball of string. Then one morning at a hotel I came back to my room for bed after a speaking event, and the hotel staff had placed a Zen card with a Buddhist saying on my pillow (this will make Gutfeld roll his eyes). It read, "Say little. But when you speak, utter gentle words that touch the heart. Be truthful. Express kindness. Abstain from vanity. This is the way." I had an "Aha!" moment when I read those words, because it captured how I was trying to live my life most productively and happily. I carried the card with me for months until I tacked it in my medicine cabinet, and I still see it every morning and night when I brush my teeth. The card is a little worn, but its message never gets old. In the morning it helps set my intention for the day, and at night it reminds me to forgive myself if I haven't lived up to it (usually because I've let Bob Beckel push my buttons). — Dana Perino

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

There is a director who should make 'Silver Surfer' - he is mentally committed to it. He's doing another movie now. What's most important to me about this guy, first, is that he's incredible with visuals. But he's also a spiritual guy, a Zen Buddhist ... Galactus is a force of nature, not a being. That's all I'm saying. — Avi Arad

Buddhist teaching tells us that we are all connected to an energy source in which all knowledge already exists. This universal energy is called Chi in China and Ki in Japan. It refers to a higher energy, a divine energy. Zen tells us that everything that exists in this universe comes from this source and will eventually return to this source. It tells us that we too are made of this energy. In addition, Zen teaches us that we are not only connected to this higher form of energy, we are also connected to all things in the world around us: people, animals, plants, even rocks. — Michelle Dujardin

I don't have custody. Wayne is just - We're on good terms about our son. It's not an issue." "Got a number where we can reach him?" "Yes, but he's on a plane right now. He visited for the Fourth. He's headed back this evening." "You sure about that? How do you know he boarded the plane?" "I'm sure he had nothing to do with this, if that's what you're asking. We're not fighting over our son. My ex is the most harmless and easygoing man you've ever met." "Oh, I don't know. I've met some pretty easygoing fellas. I know a guy up in Maine who leads a Buddhist-themed therapy group, teaches people about managing their temper and addictions through Transcendental Meditation. The only time this guy ever lost his composure was the day his wife served him with a restraining order. First he lost his Zen, then he lost two bullets in the back of her head. But that Buddhist-themed therapy group he runs sure is popular on his cell block in Shawshank. Lotta guys with anger-management issues in there. — Joe Hill

I never thought much about God, certainly never wondered whether God was thinking about me, until I fell in love with a Zen Buddhist priest. — Stacey D'Erasmo

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

Like pebbles in a bag, the monks polish each other. — Unknown

However, it should in no way be associated with that great body of factual information relating to orthodox Zen Buddhist practice. It's not very factual on motorcycles either. — Robert M. Pirsig

But the solution to the riddle of life and space and time lies outside space and time. For, as it should be abundantly clear by now, nothing inside a frame can state, or even ask, anything about that frame. The solution, then, is not the finding of an answer to the riddle of existence, but the realization that there is no riddle. This is the essence of the beautiful, almost Zen Buddhist closing sentences of the Tracticus: "For an answer which cannot be expressed the question too cannot be expressed. The riddle does not exist." — Paul Watzlawick

She explained to me that young people need lots of exercise and that we should exhaust ourselves on a daily basis or else we would have troublesome thoughts and dreams, which would result in troublesome actions. — Ruth Ozeki

There's something Zen-like about the way I work - it's like raking gravel in a Zen Buddhist garden. — Chuck Close

To an experienced Zen Buddhist, asking if one believes in Zen or one believes in the Buddha, sounds a little ludicrous, like asking if one believes in air or water. Similarly Quality is not something you believe in, Quality is something you experience. — Robert M. Pirsig

At times, Zen does get into some Buddhist Cosmology. Nishijima Roshi, my main teacher would talk about that and almost every time immediately say that it was only one way of looking at it. Whenever addressing realms of Heaven or Hell, he'd also address that it was just a psychological state. — Brad Warner

And finally, be assured that Zen asks nothing even as it promises nothing. One can be a Protestant Zen Buddhist, a Catholic Zen Buddhist or a Jewish Zen Buddhist. Zen is a quiet thing. It listens. — Howard Fast

With the near-death or clinical near-death phenomenon some people who are brought back from 'death' have reported being alive the entire time they were 'dead.' This phenomenon occurs among people with a wide diversity of religious belief and no religious belief at all - from atheists to Zen Buddhists. — John Ankerberg

There are ancient works, written by monks that identify with Japanese's Zen monks practicing homosexuality. A woman can become a Zen monk also, but it is not an easy task since men are closer to Buddha than their female counterparts. Still, Buddhist have been known to practice the art of one woman having multiple husbands. — Isaiah Seber

Sing before the spirits and dance with the earth deities
And you will be able to compose your own tune.
Then you and I, united, will clap hands joyously,
Singing 'tum-tiddly-um tum-tiddly-um-tum. — Hongzhi Zhengjue

The point is obvious. There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist/Unitarian, Irish/Italian/Octogenarian/Zen Buddhist, Zionist/Seventh-day Adventist, Women's Lib/Republican, Mattachine/Four Square Gospel feels it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse. Every dimwit editor who sees himself as the source of all dreary blanc-mange plain-porridge unleavened literature licks his guillotine and eyes the neck of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery rhyme. — Ray Bradbury

Zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration on our usual everyday routine. — Shunryu Suzuki

Being free is as difficult and as perpetual - or rather fighting for one's freedom, struggling towards being free, is like struggling to be a poet or a good Christian or a good jew or a good Moslem or a good Zen Buddhist. You work all day long and achieve some kind of level of success by nightfall, go to sleep and wake up in the next morning with the job still to be done. So you start all over again. — Maya Angelou

My ethics, my sense of morality, my work ethic, my sense of compassion for suffering humanity, all of that comes directly out of the practice of poetry, as does my Buddhist practice. Poetry is a very important element in the history of Buddhism in general and in Zen in particular. It was really Zen that motivated me to change the way I perceive the world. — Sam Hamill

Harmonizing opposites by going back to their source is the distinctive quality of the Zen attitude, the Middle Way: embracing contradictions, making a synthesis of them, achieving balance. — Taisen Deshimaru

What's that mean?" Eddie asked. "I hate it when you start up with your Zen Buddhist shit, Roland." "It means I don't know," Roland said. "Who is this man Zen Buddhist? Is he wise like me?" Eddie looked at Roland for a long, long time before deciding the gunslinger was making one of his rare jokes. "Ah, get outta here ... — Stephen King

Studying with a teacher doesn't simply mean going to an occasional seminar or Zen retreat. It means fully applying yourself to what the teacher says, most of which is not verbal. — Frederick Lenz

I came to California in 1970 and so many people were asking if I was a Buddhist or knew Zen theory, asking if I was enlightened already or not. So I said, "Yes, I am enlightened," and then I studied quickly to catch up. — Hiroshi Sugimoto

Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh is one of the most beloved Buddhist teachers in the West, a rare combination of mystic, poet, scholar, and activist. His luminous presence and the simple, compassionate clarity of his writings have touched countless lives. — Joanna Macy

From my own personal encounters and studies with both Tantric and Zen Buddhist monks, I have found them to be humorous, warm, charming, and compassionate. — Frederick Lenz

The three elements of creativity are thus: loving, knowing, and doing - or heart, mind, and hands - or, as Zen Buddhist teaching has it; great faith, great question, and great courage. — Eric Maisel

What sets Tibetan Buddhism apart from other Buddhist traditions - such as the Zen Buddhism of Japan or the Theravada tradition in Sri Lanka - is that while Tibetans aim to become enlightened, they don't want to enter Nirvana. — Scott Carney

People kill and a re killed because they cling too tightly to their own beliefs and ideologies. [ ... ] The second precept of the Order of Interbeing, founded within the Zen Buddhist tradition during the was in Vietnam, is about letting go of views: Do not think the knowledge you presently possess is changeless, absolute truth. Avoid being narrow-minded and bound to present views. Learn and practice nonattachment from views in order to be open to receive others' viewpoints. — Thich Nhat Hanh

If you exchanged wedding vows, tape them to your bathroom mirror and read them aloud to yourself every morning along with the ritual brushing of teeth. It's not realistic to believe that you will live your promises as a daily practice
unless you're a saint or a highly evolved Zen Buddhist. Not where marriage is concerned. But you can make a practice of returning to your vows when the going gets rough. — Harriet Lerner

Not one single atom opposes us. — Yi Wu Hongzhi

You grow, learn, and the more I can sit in silence and be comfortable with myself, the more I can make noise, as ironic and Zen Buddhist and satanic as it sounds! — Nikki Sixx

In general, I call her every night, and we talk for an hour, which is forty-five minutes of me, and fifteen minutes of her stirring her tea, which she steeps with the kind of Zen patience that would make Buddhists sit up in envy and then breathe through their envy and then move past their envy. — Aimee Bender

I'm a lapsed Zen Buddhist. I've read hundreds of books on Zen, I meditated daily for about fifteen years, and once spent a month studying with Vietnamese Zen monk Thich Nhat Hanh. — Will McIntosh

I'm a practicing Zen Buddhist and I'm influenced by my readings in that tradition, such as the notion that everyone is born a perfect being and we spend most of our lives with a clouded vision trying to realize our perfection, he says. At critical moments in the book, T.S. registers his inkling of this realization. When he makes his maps, it feels like taking down dictation from the universe. — Reif Larsen

There are some Buddhist philosophers (a branch referred to as Zen) who say that sometimes a bad thing happens to prevent a worse thing happening, — Kate Atkinson

I am a Zen Buddhist - but that is not to be thought of as a religion in — Howard Fast

If you do not get it from yourself, where will you go for it? — Dogen

Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu, Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion or cultural system. I am not from the East or the West, not out of the ocean or up from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not composed of elements at all. I do not exist, am not an entity in this world or the next, did not descend from Adam or Eve or any origin story. My place is placeless, a trace of the traceless. Neither body or soul. I belong to the beloved, have seen the two worlds as one and that one call to and know, first, last, outer, inner, only that breath breathing human being. — Rumi

Too lazy to be ambitious,
I let the world take care of itself.
Ten days' worth of rice in my bag;
a bundle of twigs by the fireplace.
Why chatter about delusion and enlightenment?
Listening to the night rain on my roof,
I sit comfortably, with both legs stretched out. — Ryokan

13. A Buddha
In Tokyo in th Meiji era there lived two prominent teachers of opposite characteristics. One, Unsho, an instructor in Shingon, kept Buddha's precepts scrupulously. He never drank intoxicants, nor did he eat after eleven o'clock in the morning. The other teacher, Tanzan, a professor of philosophy at the Imperial University, never observed the precepts. When he felt like eating he ate, and when he felt like sleeping in the daytime he slept.
One da Unsho visited Tanzan, who was drinking wine at the time, not even a drop of which is supposed to touch the tongue of a Buddhist.
"Hello, brother," Tanzan greeted him. "Won't you have a drink?"
"I never drink!" exclaimed Unsho solemnly.
"One who never drinks is not even human," said Tanzan.
"Do you mean to call me inhuman just because I do not indulge in intoxicating liquids!" exclaimed Unsho in anger. "Then if I am not human, wht am I?"
"A Buddha," answered Tanzan. — Nyogen Senzaki

According to Zen Buddhist cosmology there are ten thousand different states of mind to view and understand life through. — Frederick Lenz

To be a good Zen Buddhist it is not enough to follow the teaching of its founder; we have to experience the Buddha's experience. — D.T. Suzuki