Zen Yoga Quotes & Sayings

When you blame, you open up a world of excuses, because as long as you're looking outside, you miss the opportunity to look inside, and you continue to suffer. — Donna Quesada

Zen Buddhism is a way and a view of life which does not belong to any of the formal categories of modern Western thought. It is not religion or philosophy; it is not a psychology or a type of science. It is an example of what is known in India and China as a "way of liberation," and is similar in this respect to Taoism, Vedanta, and Yoga. As will soon be obvious, a way of liberation can have no positive definition. It has to be suggested by saying what it is not, somewhat as a sculptor reveals an image by the act of removing pieces of stone from a block. — Alan W. Watts

Life is eternal game, there are no rules. Indulge yourself. — Osh Marty

The person who's in the Zen monastery, who's doing a kind of poor job at meditating and a half-ass job cleaning the gardens is not doing very good yoga. — Frederick Lenz

Nothing was ever in tune. People just blindly grabbed at whatever there was: communism, health foods, zen, surfing, ballet, hypnotism, group encounters, orgies, biking, herbs, Catholicism, weight-lifting, travel, withdrawal, vegetarianism, India, painting, writing, sculpting, composing, conducting, backpacking, yoga, copulating, gambling, drinking, hanging around, frozen yogurt, Beethoven, Back, Buddha, Christ, TM, H, carrot juice, suicide, handmade suits, jet travel, New York City, and then it all evaporated and fell apart. People had to find things to do while waiting to die. I guess it was nice to have a choice. — Charles Bukowski

They were a well-mixed bunch of men whose mental sharpness ranged from that of a butter knife to an overripe plum. — Annelie Wendeberg

It seems like there are always gatekeepers. People between you and the people who are moved by your work. They often make a beautiful thing creepy. — John Lurie

Identity, though, is a difficult matter to tease out, especially in a time of flux. How to tell a spaniel from a retriever when all dogs have become middle-sized and brown? Should we go by some arbitrary blood quantum wherein half makes an Indian and forty-nine percent makes something else? Certainly forty-nine percent does not a whiteman make, at least not by the laws then prevailing in our state and most others. Or do we go by the old ways, the clans and the mothers, blood degree be damned? Or by what language someone dreams in or prays in or curses in? Or whether they cook bean bread and still tell the tales of Spearfinger and Uktena by the winter fire and go to water when they're sick? And what if they did all those things but were blond and square-headed as Norsemen? Or do we just hold a dry oak leaf to their cheeks and cull by whether they are darker or lighter? — Charles Frazier

philosophy of art usually lacks one of two things: either the philosophy or the art — Friedrich Schlegel

A military audience is kind of weird. Pretty much how you would imagine a troop of males that haven't seen a female in a long time and have been stuck in a base camp in the middle of nowhere for too long without any alcohol. — Missy Higgins

I am yet to see an insane who would use the mid of the high way as a home. Regardless of the degree of insanity, there is always a regard for the value and essence of life — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

There are different pathways - be it Zen, tantra, karma yoga, or jnana yoga. Different ways have been devised to do the same thing for different types of people according to their temperament. — Frederick Lenz

It's true that while instructors and schools offer courses in everything from cooking and how to wear a kimono to yoga and Zen meditation, you'll be hard-pressed to find classes on how to tidy. The general assumption, in Japan at least, is that tidying doesn't need to be taught but rather is picked up naturally. Cooking skills and recipes are passed down as family traditions from grandmother to mother to daughter, yet one never hears of anyone passing on the family secrets of tidying, even within the same household. — Marie Kondo

I take great care of myself by carefully shutting myself away — Vincent Van Gogh

When you have such a huge past, a big background as we have, you can play off that - a lot of people do. But we felt we wouldn't have a legitimate future unless we put something new together. — Andy Taylor

When you catch yourself slipping into a pool of negativity, notice how it derives from nothing other than resistance to the current situation. — Donna Quesada

I'm gonna pray for him. — Bruce Irvin

All a man has is pride. Sometimes you have it so much it is a sin. We have all done things for pride that we knew were impossible. We didn't care. But a man must implement his pride with intelligence and care. — Ernest Hemingway,

Courage is often associated with aggression, but instead should be seen as a willingness to act from the heart. — Donna Quesada

Yoga has had a profound effect on my songs and performances. I don't meditate in the traditional style of sitting and doing nothing. I prefer the zen of paying attention, such as the meditation of yoga flow, or walking meditations. I also consider singing, surfing and gardening to very meditative. — Jason Mraz

Build your home in small moments of joy, and you will always feel at home. — Charlotte Eriksson

Seeds do not grow without soil; our soil and our favorable environment is the presence of God — Sunday Adelaja

Souls that have lived in virtue are in general happy, and when separated from the irrational part of their nature, and made clean from all matter, have communion with the gods and join them in the governing of the whole world. Yet even if none of this happiness fell to their lot, virtue itself, and the joy and glory of virtue, and the life that is subject to no grief and no master are enough to make happy those who have set themselves to live according to virtue and have achieved it. — Sallust

I teach Zen, tantric mysticism, jnana yoga, bhakti yoga, Tibetan mysticism, occultism and psychic development. I also teach poetry and literature, film and many other different things. — Frederick Lenz

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