- “that stone Buddha deserves all the birdshit it getsI wave my skinny arms like a tall flower in the wind” ― Ikkyu, Crow with No Mouth
- “There is no excuse good enough to ever be out of alignment with love. You’re going to get hurt, and you will feel pain. Yet your purpose is to keep loving, anyway. Keep moving forward with an open heart. Love is a Divine gift given to humanity. Wasting it is no longer an option. Love is what brings light to a dark place. Love is what transforms a dying world into a thriving planet.” ― Alaric Hutchinson, Living Peace: Essential Teachings for Enriching Life
- “Your mind is too focussed on human beings. Observe the patterns, shapes, colours, texture, sounds and sensations around you. Soon you will come out of human identity and realize that you’re not a person but a presence. You’re not something that exists; you’re the existence itself.” ― Shunya
- “Consider the sunlight. You may see it is near, yet if you follow it from world to world you will never catch it in your hands. Then you may describe it as far away and, lo, you will see it just before your eyes. Follow it and, behold, it escapes you; run from it and it follows you close. You can neither possess it nor have done with it. From this example you can understand how it is with the true Nature of all things and, henceforth, there will be no need to grieve or to worry about such things.” ― Huang Po, The Zen Teaching of Huang Po: On the Transmission of Mind
- “You are not your thoughts!! This simple yet powerful statement can greatly change the quality of your life.” ― Dawn Gluskin
- “Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire. The reality of your own nature should determine the speed. If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion.” ― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
- “To make man superman, add the word ‘super’ to the word ‘man’; or meditation to his day.” ― Mokokoma Mokhonoana
- “You can feel Him but you cannot understand Him.” ― ~Sw. Chidananda Tirtha
- “No such thing as time travel, he’d rumbled patiently, once. Only live with what you’ve done, and try in the future to do what you’re happy to live with.” ― Richard K. Morgan, Thirteen
- “Imagine you are passing by a roadside gambling stall. There is an operator surrounded by some audience members who are gambling their money and winning. You get interested and place your bet. You lose your money. Later you realize that the operator and the audience were all part of the same gang.Give it a thought: Maybe the things you like and things you dislike are part of the same conspiracy? They are just putting on a show to keep you engaged. You are the only real audience of this show.” ― Shunya
- “On my journey from the fantastical to the practical, spirituality has gone from being a mystical experience to something very ordinary and a daily experience. Many don’t want this, instead they prefer spiritual grandeur, and I believe that is what keeps enlightenment at bay. We want big revelations of complexity that validates our perceptions of the divine. What a let down it was to Moses when God spoke through a burning bush! But that is exactly the simplicity of it all. Our spiritual life is our ordinary life and it is very grounded in every day experience. For me, it is the daily practice of kindness, mindfulness, happiness, and peace.” ― Alaric Hutchinson
- “When we perceive the stars, the stars are the object of our perception—they exist within us. When we perceive the ocean, the ocean is also within us. The idea that things exist outside of our Consciousness is an illusion. Ancient wisdom traditions have known this for centuries, and even modern science has recognized that our sense organs merely receive information and project it within our own minds. Vision does not take place in the eye, but in an area located in the back of the brain. Everything that we perceive to be “out there” is being experienced “in here.” ― Joseph P. Kauffman, The Answer Is YOU: A Guide to Mental, Emotional, and Spiritual Freedom
- “Just as a biologist cannot find life by dissecting it, an artist cannot find beauty by analyzing it.” ― Kenneth S. Leong, The Zen Teachings of Jesus
- “If you feel depressed for an hour, you’ve produced approximately eighteen billion new cells that have more receptors calling out for depressed-type peptides and fewer calling out for feel-good peptides.” ― Chris Prentiss, Zen and the Art of Happiness
- “Maybe the Buddha was right: pain and suffering are the only true constants in life.” ― Dermot Davis, Zen and Sex
- “Certainly human culture may have achieved great progress in the course of history. Suffering and unhappiness in the human world, however, do not seem to have decreased. The present situation of our world is so full of poverty, distrust, diseases, strife, that there seems to be no end. Hundreds and thousands of great men admired as saints and sages have appeared in the world in the past, and they have devoted their lives for the betterment of the world. Human suffering and unhappiness, however, do not seem to have decreased or ended. Over and over again they repeatedly, thanklessly endeavoured to fill up the well with snow. The true life of Zen is found here, when we all become true Great Fools and calmly and nonchalantly keep on doing our best, realizing well that our efforts will never be rewarded.” ― Zenkei Shibayama, Flower Does Not Talk
- “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, Buddha in the Classroom: Zen Wisdom to Inspire Teachers
- “Every day, priests minutely examine the Dharma And endlessly chant complicated sutras.Before doing that, though, they should learnHow to read the love letters sent by The wind and rain, the snow and moon.” ― Ikkyu, Ikkyu and the Crazy Cloud Anthology: A Zen Poet of Medieval Japan
- “Wisdom comes from not only in the understanding that often times we say no to things too easily and quickly, but also in knowing that that ‘no’ for the sake of your physical and mental wellbeing can also be a reasonable and grounded decision for which you shouldn’t feel the need to feel guilty.” ― Forrest Curran, Purple Buddha Project: Purple Book of Self-Love
- “As the grounding effect of breath awareness disengages you from the often-overwhelming chatter of the mind, the level at which you think will seem to transcend the noise.” ― Benjamin W. Decker, Practical Meditation for Beginners: 10 Days to a Happier, Calmer You
- Treat every moment as your last. It is not preparation for something else. Shunryu Suzuki (Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind)
- “A balanced diet” is not so much about protein/fat/carbohydrate ratios. The real ratios to consider, at least for the typical American or European, are energy consumption/expenditure, pleasure/actual need, food/everything else.” ― Darrell Calkins, Re:
- “The practice of meditation is like a long journey in the beautiful countryside. If you focus on the brakes, the speed dial, the accelerator, the mirror too often – you will take the fun out of the journey” ― Debashis Dey
- I don’t hold on to anything, don’t reject anything; nowhere an obstacle or conflict. Layman Pang
- “Life is a river,” a wise friend told me. “It’s flowing. You’re never at the same place twice.” ― Kamal Ravikant, Live Your Truth
- “Transformar algo mundano en sagrado requiere un gran arte.” ― Osho
- “I haven’t learned how to confront a problem by avoiding it.” ― Brian Spellman
- To be truly ignorant, be content with your own knowledge. Zhuangzi
- “I must only warn you of one thing. You have become a different person in the course of these years. For this is what the art of archery means: a profound and far−reaching contest of the archer with himself. Perhaps you have hardly noticed it yet, but you will feel it very strongly when you meet your friends and acquaintances again in your own country: things will no longer harmonize as before. You will see with other eyes and measure with other measures. It has happened to me too, and it happens to all who are touched by the spirit of this art.” ― Eugen Herrigel, Zen in the Art of Archery
- “When we fancy ourselves to be a particular thing with a name, we see ourselves as we would a cork in a stream. What we do not realize is that there is only stream. What we fancy as particular is, from the first, only movement, change and flow.” ― Steve Hagen, Buddhism Plain and Simple