131 Zen Quotes For Inspiration

In today's fast-paced world, finding a moment of peace and clarity can be a challenge. Zen philosophy offers a timeless wisdom that helps us center ourselves and find tranquility amidst life's chaos. Whether you're seeking motivation, serenity, or a fresh perspective, Zen quotes can serve as a powerful source of inspiration. In this collection, we've curated the top 131 Zen quotes that are sure to enlighten your mind and uplift your spirit. Join us on this journey to inner peace and discover the profound simplicity and beauty of Zen teachings.

1. “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field.I'll meet you there.When the soul lies down in that grassthe world is too full to talk about.” - Rumi

2. “Only the hand that erases can write the true thing.” - Meister Eckhart

3. “The dizziness in the face of les espaces infinis--only overcome if we dare to gaze into them without any protection. And accept them as the reality before which we must justify our existence. For this is the truth we must reach to live, that everything is and we just in it.” - Dag Hammarskjöld

4. “Humility before the flower at the timber line is the gate which gives access to the path up the open fell.” - Dag Hammarskjöld

5. “To preserve the silence within--amid all the noise. To remain open and quiet, a moist humus in the fertile darkness where the rain falls and the grain ripens--no matter how many tramp across the parade ground in whirling dust under an arid sky.” - Dag Hammarskjöld

6. “This accidentalmeeting of possibilitiescalls itself I.I ask: what am I doing here?And, at once, this Ibecomes unreal.” - Dag Hammarskjöld

7. “Where there are humans, You'll find flies,And Buddhas.” - Kobayashi Issa

8. “Like wind-- In it, with it, of it. Of it just like a sail, so light and strong that, even when it is bent flat, it gathers all the power of the wind without hampering its course.Like light-- In light, lit through by light, transformed into light. Like the lens which disappears in the light it focuses.Like wind. Like light.Just this--on these expanses, on these heights.” - Dag Hammarskjöld

9. “Humility is just as much the opposite of self-abasement as it is of self-exaltation. To be humble is not to make comparisons. Secure in its reality, the self is neither better nor worse, bigger nor smaller, than anything else in the universe. It *is*--is nothing, yet at the same time one with everything. It is in this sense that humility is absolute self-effacement.To be nothing in the self-effacement of humility, yet, for the sake of the task, to embody its whole weight and importance in your earing, as the one who has been called to undertake it. To give to people, works, poetry, art, what the self can contribute, and to take, simply and freely, what belongs to it by reason of its identity. Praise and blame, the winds of success and adversity, blow over such a life without leaving a trace or upsetting its balance.” - Dag Hammarskjöld

10. “Once Seung Sahn Soen-sa and a student of his attended a talk at a Zen center in California. The Dharma teacher spoke about Bodhidharma. After the talk, someone asked him "What's the difference between Bodhidharma's sitting in Sorim for nine years and your sitting here now?"The Dharma teacher said, "About five thousand miles."The questioner said, "Is that all?"The Dharma teacher said, "Give or take a few miles."Later on, Soen-sa asked his student, "What do you think of these answers?""Not bad, not good. But the dog runs after the bone.""How would you answer?""I'd say, 'Why do you make a difference?' "Soen-sa said, "Not bad. Now you ask me.""What's the difference between Bodhidharma's sitting in Sorim for nine years and your sitting here now?""Don't you know?""I'm listening.""Bodhidharma sat in Sorim for nine years. I am sitting here now."The student smiled.” - Zen Master Seung Sahn

11. “Not being tense but ready.Not thinking but not dreaming.Not being set but flexible.Liberation from the uneasy sense of confinement.It is being wholly and quietly alive, aware and alert, ready for whatever may come.” - Bruce Lee

12. “...it's like this. Sometimes, when you've a very long street ahead of you, you think how terribly long it is and feel sure you'll never get it swept. And then you start to hurry. You work faster and faster and every time you look up there seems to be just as much left to sweep as before, and you try even harder, and you panic, and in the end you're out of breath and have to stop--and still the street stretches away in front of you. That's not the way to do it.You must never think of the whole street at once, understand? You must only concentrate on the next step, the next breath, the next stroke of the broom, and the next, and the next. Nothing else.That way you enjoy your work, which is important, because then you make a good job of it. And that's how it ought to be.And all at once, before you know it, you find you've swept the whole street clean, bit by bit. what's more, you aren't out of breath. That's important, too...” - Michael Ende

13. “Life is more or less a lie, but then again, that's exactly the way we want it to be.” - Bob Dylan

14. “Here's an example: someone says, "Master, please hand me the knife," and he hands them the knife, blade first. "Please give me the other end," he says. And the master replies, "What would you do with the other end?" This is answering an everyday matter in terms of the metaphysical.When the question is, "Master, what is the fundamental principle of Buddhism?" Then he replies, "There is enough breeze in this fan to keep me cool." That is answering the metaphysical in terms of the everyday, and that is, more or less, the principle zen works on. The mundane and the sacred are one and the same.” - Alan Watts

15. “It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable.” - seneca

16. “tahiya hote pavan nahin pani, tahiya srishti kown utpati;tahiya hote kali nahin phula, tahiya hote garbh nahi mula;tahiya hote vidya nahin Veda, tahiya hote shabd nahin swada;tahiya hote pind nahin basu,nahin dhar dharni na pavan akasu;tahiya hote guru nahin chela, gamya agamya na panth duhela.Sakhi: avigati ki gati ka kahown, jake gawn na thawngun bihuna pekhana, ka kahi lijai nawnIn that state there is no air or water, and no creation or creator; There is no bud or flower, and no fetus or semen; There is no education or Vedas, and no word or taste; There is no body or settlement, and no earth, air or space; There is no guru or disciple, and no easy or difficult path.Sakhi: That state is very strange. I cannot explain it. It has no village or resting place. That state is without gunas (qualities). What name can on give it? ” - Kabir

17. “It is easy to believe we are each waves and forget we are also the ocean.” - Jon J. Muth

18. “Learning to let go should be learned before learning to get. Life should be touched, not strangled. You’ve got to relax, let it happen at times, and at others move forward with it.” - Ray Bradbury

19. “The truth knocks on the door and you say, "Go away, I'm looking for the truth," and so it goes away. Puzzling.” - Robert M. Pirsig

20. “Like vanishing dew,a passing apparitionor the sudden flashof lightning -- already gone --thus should one regard one's self.” - Ikkyu

21. “When you've understood this scripture, throw it away. If you can't understand this scripture, throw it away. I insist on your freedom.” - Jack Kerouac

22. “A boddhisattva is someone who is on the way to becoming a buddha. All of us become boddhisattvas as soon as we start to take our Zen work seriously and the work we do contributes to creating a world in which all good actions become more efficacious.” - David Brazier

23. “What happens to the drop of wineThat you pour into the sea?Does it remain itself, unchanged?It is as if it never existed.So it is with the soul: Love drinks it in,It is united with Truth,Its old nature fades away,It is no longer master of itself.The soul wills and yet does not will:Its will belongs to Another.It has eyes only for this beauty;It no longer seeks to possess, as was its wont--It lacks the strength to possess such sweetness.The base of this highest of peaksIs founded on nichil,Shaped nothingness, made one with the Lord.” - Jacopone Da Todi

24. “Pardon all runners,All speechless, alien winds,All mad waters.Pardon their impulses,Their wild attitudes,Their young flights, their reticence.When a message has no clothes onHow can it be spoken.” - Thomas Merton

25. “When it is understood that one loses joy and happiness in the attempt to possess them, the essence of natural farming will be realized. The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings.” - Masanobu Fukuoka

26. “The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings.” - Masanobu Fukuoka

27. “Life is a journey. Time is a river. The door is ajar” - Jim Butcher

28. “I have no news of my coming or passing away--the whole thing happened quicker than a breath;ask no questions of the moth.” - Farid al-Din Attar (عطار)

29. “Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.” - Thich Nhat Hanh

30. “The baby looks at things all day without winking; that is because his eyes are not focused on any particular object. He goes without knowing where he is going, and stops without knowing what he is doing. He merges himself within the surroundings and moves along with it. These are the principles of mental hygiene.” - Chuang Tzu

31. “A pity it is evening, yetI do love the water of this springseeing how clear it is, how clean;rays of sunset gleam on it,lighting up its ripples, making itone with those who travelthe roads; I turn and facethe moon; sing it a song, thenlisten to the sound of the windamongst the pines.” - Li Po

32. “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!"” - Mumon

33. “The point of the spiritual life is to realize Truth. But you will never understand the spiritual life, or realize Truth, if you measure it by your own yardstick.” - Dainin Katagiri

34. “It's like you took a bottle of ink and you threw it at a wall. Smash! And all that ink spread. And in the middle, it's dense, isn't it? And as it gets out on the edge, the little droplets get finer and finer and make more complicated patterns, see? So in the same way, there was a big bang at the beginning of things and it spread. And you and I, sitting here in this room, as complicated human beings, are way, way out on the fringe of that bang. We are the complicated little patterns on the end of it. Very interesting. But so we define ourselves as being only that. If you think that you are only inside your skin, you define yourself as one very complicated little curlique, way out on the edge of that explosion. Way out in space, and way out in time. Billions of years ago, you were a big bang, but now you're a complicated human being. And then we cut ourselves off, and don't feel that we're still the big bang. But you are. Depends how you define yourself. You are actually--if this is the way things started, if there was a big bang in the beginning-- you're not something that's a result of the big bang. You're not something that is a sort of puppet on the end of the process. You are still the process. You are the big bang, the original force of the universe, coming on as whoever you are. When I meet you, I see not just what you define yourself as--Mr so-and- so, Ms so-and-so, Mrs so-and-so--I see every one of you as the primordial energy of the universe coming on at me in this particular way. I know I'm that, too. But we've learned to define ourselves as separate from it. ” - Alan Watts

35. “Who would then deny that when I am sipping tea in my tearoom I am swallowing the whole universe with it and that this very moment of my lifting the bowl to my lips is eternity itself transcending time and space?” - Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki

36. “clouds very high looknot one word helped them get up there” - Ikkyu

37. “that stone Buddha deserves all the birdshit it getsI wave my skinny arms like a tall flower in the wind” - Ikkyu

38. “it isn't that we're alone or not alonewhose voice do you want mine? yours?” - Ikkyu

39. “I'd love to give you somethingbut what would help?” - Ikkyu

40. “don't wait for the man standing in the snowto cut off his arm help him now” - Ikkyu

41. “born born everything is always bornthinking about it try not to” - Ikkyu

42. “Hearing a crow with no mouthCry in the deepDarkness of the night,I feel a longing forMy father before he was born.” - Ikkyu

43. “Letting go is the lesson. Letting go is always the lesson. Have you ever noticed how much of our agony is all tied up with craving and loss?” - Susan Gordon Lydon

44. “Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.” - Alan Wilson Watts

45. “To deny the reality of things is to miss their reality; to assert the emptiness of things is to miss their reality. The more you talk and think about it, the further astray you wander from the truth. Stop talking and thinking and there is nothing you will not be able to know.” - Sengstan

46. “When mind exists undisturbed in the Way, nothing in the world can offend, and when a thing can no longer offend it ceases to exist in the old way. When no discriminating thoughts arise, the old mind ceases to exist.” - Sengstan

47. “To live in the Great Way is neither easy nor difficult, but those with limited views are fearful and irresolute: the faster they hurry, the slower they go, and clinging cannot be limited: even to be attached to the idea of enlightenment is to go astray. Just let things be in their own way and there will be neither coming nor going. Obey the nature of things (your own nature), and you will walk freely and undisturbed.” - Sengstan

48. “When thought is in bondage the truth is hidden, for everything is murky and unclear, and the burdensome practice of judging brings annoyance and weariness. What benefit can be derived from distinctions and separations?” - Sengstan

49. “For the unified mind in accord with the Way all self-centered striving ceases. Doubts and irresolutions vanish and life in true faith is possible. With a single stroke we are freed from bondage; nothing clings to us and we hold nothing. All is empty, clear, self-illuminating, with no exertion of the mind's power.” - Sengstan

50. “One thing, all things: move among and intermingle, without distinction. To live in this realization is to be without anxiety about non-perfection. To live in this faith is the road to non-duality, because the non-dual is one with the trusting mind.” - Sengstan

51. “What is first seen as a loss is now seen as a gain. For he finds solitude, not in far off, quite places; he creates it out of himself, spreads it around him, wherever he may be, because he loves it and slowly he ripens in this tranquility. For the inner process is beginning to unfold, stillness is extraordinarily important.” - Janwillem van de Wetering

52. “In pale moonlight / the wisteria's scent / comes from far away.” - Yosa Buson

53. “I discovered that it is necessary, absolutely necessary, to believe in nothing. That is, we have to believe in something which has no form and no color--something which exists before all forms and colors appear... No matter what god or doctrine you believe in, if you become attached to it, your belief will be based more or less on a self-centered idea.” - Shunryu Suzuki

54. “The more you know, the less you need.” - Yvon Chouinard

55. “This will never come again” - Steve Hagen

56. “What makes human life--which is inseparable from this moment--so precious is its fleeting nature. And not that it doesn't last but that it never returns again.” - Steve Hagen

57. “Not thinking about anything is Zen. Once you know this, walking, sitting, or lying down, everything you do is Zen.” - Bodhidharma

58. “But people of the deepest understanding look within, distracted by nothing. Since a clear mind is the Buddha, they attain the understanding of a Buddha without using the mind.” - Bodhidharma

59. “Not till your thoughts cease all their branching here and there, not till you abandon all thoughts of seeking for something, not till your mind is motionless as wood or stone, will you be on the right road to the Gate.” - Huang Po

60. “I'm simply saying that there is a way to be sane. I'm saying that you can get rid of all this insanity created by the past in you. Just by being a simple witness of your thought processes. It is simply sitting silently, witnessing the thoughts, passing before you. Just witnessing, not interfering not even judging, because the moment you judge you have lost the pure witness. The moment you say “this is good, this is bad,” you have already jumped onto the thought process. It takes a little time to create a gap between the witness and the mind. Once the gap is there, you are in for a great surprise, that you are not the mind, that you are the witness, a watcher. And this process of watching is the very alchemy of real religion. Because as you become more and more deeply rooted in witnessing, thoughts start disappearing. You are, but the mind is utterly empty.That’s the moment of enlightenment. That is the moment that you become for the first time an unconditioned, sane, really free human being.” - Osho

61. “Canning is a whole world of a thing to do. It requires that you get out of your head. It's a Zen thing. You cannot be wondering about your inadequacies and how they drove Bob off and be making jelly. You'll wind up with big, cylindrical jujubes.” - Debby Bull

62. “Consider your own place in the universal oneness of which we are all a part, from which we all arise, and to which we all return.” - David Fontana

63. “If you are unable to find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?” - Dogen

64. “there is no problems, only solutions".” - Vesa Peltonen

65. “When composing a verse let there not be a hair's breath separating your mind from what you write; composition of a poem must be done in an instant, like a woodcutter felling a huge tree or a swordsman leaping at a dangerous enemy.” - Basho

66. “Haiku is not a shriek, a howl, a sigh, or a yawn; rather, it is the deep breath of life.” - Santoka Taneda

67. “Real haiku is the soul of poetry. Anything that is not actually present in one's heart is not haiku. The moon glows, flowers bloom, insects cry, water flows. There is no place we cannot find flowers or think of the moon. This is the essence of haiku. Go beyond the restrictions of your era, forget about purpose or meaning, separate yourself from historical limitations—there you will find the essence of true art, religion, and science.” - Santoka Taneda

68. “When the mind is exhausted of images, it invents its own.” - Gary Snyder

69. “We are searching for the core of our lives; our culture intuits that writing, that ancient activity, might be the pathway...Awakening does not feed ego's needs and desires; it pulverizes the self. Our society couldn't knowingly bear such reduction, so we've tricked ourselves into the same path but call it writing.” - Natalie Goldberg

70. “What is the purpose of writing music? One is, of course, not dealing with purposes but dealing with sounds. Or the answer must take the form of a paradox: a purposeful purposeless or a purposeless play. This play, however, is an affirmation of life--not an attempt to bring order out of chaos nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply a way of waking up to the very life we’re living, which is so excellent once one gets one’s mind and one’s desires out of its way and lets it act of its own accord.” - John Cage

71. “He knows not where he's going,For the ocean will decide,Its not the destination,It's the glory of the ride” - Edward Monkton

72. “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

73. “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

74. “The real ugliness lies in the relationship between people who produce the technology and the things they produce, which results in a similar relationship between the people who use the technology and the things they use.” - Robert M. Pirsig

75. “The importance and unimportance of the self cannot be exaggerated.” - Reginald Horace Blyth

76. “These are some of the characteristics of the state of mind which the creation and appreciation of haiku demand: Selflessness, Loneliness, Grateful Acceptance, Wordlessness, Non-intellectuality, Contradictoriness, Humor, Freedom, Non-morality, Simplicity, Materiality, Love, and Courage.” - Reginald Horace Blyth

77. “The love of nature is religion, and that religion is poetry; these three things are one thing. This is the unspoken creed of haiku poets.” - Reginald Horace Blyth

78. “Thus we see that the all important thing is not killing or giving life, drinking or not drinking, living in the town or the country, being unlucky or lucky, winning or losing. It is how we win, how we lose, how we live or die, finally, how we choose.” - Reginald Horace Blyth

79. “What is Zen? Zen means doing anything perfectly, making mistakes perfectly, being defeated perfectly, hesitating perfectly, doing anything perfectly or imperfectly, perfectly. What is the meaning of this perfectly? How does it differ from perfectly? Perfectly is in the will; perfectly is in the activity. Perfectly means that at each moment of the activity there is no egoism in it… our pain is not only our own pain; it is the pain of the universe. The joy of the universe is also our joy. Our failure and misjudgment is that of nature, which never hopes or despairs, but keeps on trying. R. H. Blyth” - Reginald Horace Blyth

80. “Zen is a liberation from time. For if we open our eyes and see clearly, it becomes obvious that there is no other time than this instant, and that the past and the future are abstractions without any concrete reality.” - Alan Wilson Watts

81. “There is a bench in the back of my garden shaded by Virginia creeper, climbing roses, and a white pine where I sit early in the morning and watch the action. Light blue bells of a dwarf campanula drift over the rock garden just before my eyes. Behind it, a three-foot stand of aconite is flowering now, each dark blue cowl-like corolla bowed for worship or intrigue: thus its common name, monkshood. Next to the aconite, black madonna lilies with their seductive Easter scent are just coming into bloom. At the back of the garden, a hollow log, used in its glory days for a base to split kindling, now spills white cascade petunias and lobelia. I can't get enough of watching the bees and trying to imagine how they experience the abundance of, say, a blue campanula blosssom, the dizzy light pulsing, every fiber of being immersed in the flower. ...Last night, after a day in the garden, I asked Robin to explain (again) photosynthesis to me. I can't take in this business of _eating light_ and turning it into stem and thorn and flower...I would not call this meditation, sitting in the back garden. Maybe I would call it eating light. Mystical traditions recognize two kinds of practice: _apophatic mysticism_, which is the dark surrender of Zen, the Via Negativa of John of the Cross, and _kataphatic mysticism_, less well defined: an openhearted surrender to the beauty of creation. Maybe Francis of Assissi was, on the whole, a kataphatic mystic, as was Thérèse of Lisieux in her exuberant momemnts: but the fact is, kataphatic mysticism has low status in religious circles. Francis and Thérèse were made, really made, any mother superior will let you know, in the dark nights of their lives: no more of this throwing off your clothes and singing songs and babbling about the shelter of God's arms.When I was twelve and had my first menstrual period, my grandmother took me aside and said, 'Now your childhood is over. You will never really be happy again.' That is pretty much how some spiritual directors treat the transition from kataphatic to apophatic mysticism.But, I'm sorry, I'm going to sit here every day the sun shines and eat this light. Hung in the bell of desire.” - Mary Rose O'Reilley

82. “The effects you will have on your students are infinite and currently unknown; you will possibly shape the way they proceed in their careers, the way they will vote, the way they will behave as partners and spouses, the way they will raise their kids.” - Donna Quesada

83. “Each situation is a blossom to be picked with a curious spirit.” - Donna Quesada

84. “Think of the jazz improv artist responding to the musical banter among her fellow players onstage. Aside from whatever training they've done in advance, as soon as the curtain opens, they move into unknown territory together, creating something new each time by remaining in a state of undivided presence.” - Donna Quesada

85. “There had to be something wrong with my life. I should have been born a Yugoslavian shepherd who looked up at the Big Dipper every night.” - Haruki Murakami

86. “Preoccupied with a single leaf you won't see the tree.” - Vagabond

87. “Do not seek for the truth, only stop having an opinion.” - Seng-t'san

88. “1. A Cup of Tea Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), recieved a university professor who came to inqure about Zen. Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full, and then kept on pouring. The professor watched the overflow until he could no longer restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!" "Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your up?” - Nyogen Senzaki and Paul Reps

89. “5. If You Love, Love Openly Twenty monks and one nun, who was named Eshun, were practicing meditation with a certain Zen master. Eshun was very pretty even though her head was shaved and her dress plain. Several monks secretly fell in love with her. One of them wrote her a love letter, insisting upon a private meeting. Eshun did not reply. The following day the master gave a lecture to the group, and when it was over, Eshun arose. Addressing the one who had written her, she said: "If you really love me so much, come and embrace me now.” - Nyogen Senzaki and Paul Reps

90. “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 and Paul Reps

91. “14. Muddy Road Tanzan and Ekido were once traveling together down a muddy road. A heavy rain was still falling. Coming around a bend, they met a lovely girl in a silk kimono and sash, unble to cross the intersection. "Come on, girl," said Tanzan at once. Lifting her in his arms, he carriedher over the mud. Ekido did not speak again until that night when they reached a lodging temple. Then he could no longer restrain himself. "We monks don't go near females," he told Tanzan, "especially not young and lovely ones. It is dangerous. Why did you do that?" "I left the girl there," said Tanzan. "Are you still carrying her?” - Nyogen Senzaki and Paul Reps

92. “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.” - Eihei Dogen

93. “Consider this:1. Would you ride in a car whose driver was on the consciousness-expanding "entheogenic" drug LSD?And here's a bonus question:2. Why does an "expanded consciousness" include the inability to operate a motor vehicle?” - Brad Warner

94. “[Y]ou are here to learn something. Don’t try to figure out what it is. This can be frustrating and unproductive.” - Steven L. Peck

95. “Winslow bounced over on the balls of his feet, clearly not experiencing any sort of crash. 'Aren't your guys nervous? I'm nervous as all hell.''There's nothing to be nervous about,' Beck said, joining them. 'Nerves are only useful when they can spur you on to work harder, faster, better. Once the work is done, they become pointless.” - Louisa Edwards

96. “Your Treasure House is in yourself, it contains all you need” - Hui Hai

97. “Some people live as though they are already dead. There are people moving around us who are consumed by their past, terrified of their future, and stuck in their anger and jealousy. They are not alive; they are just walking corpses.” - Thich Nhat Hanh

98. “The Buddha is found in other people - even the ones we do not like very much.” - Francis Harold Cook

99. “You’ve got to live right, too. It’s the way you live that predisposes you to avoid the traps and see the right facts. You want to know how to paint a perfect painting? It’s easy. Make yourself perfect and then just paint naturally. That’s the way all the experts do it. The making of a painting or the fixing of a motorcycle isn’t separate from the rest of your existence. If you’re a sloppy thinker the six days of the week you aren’t working on your machine, what trap avoidance, what gimmicks, can make you all of a sudden sharp on the seventh? It all goes together ... The real cycle you're working in is a cycle called yourself. The machine that appears to be "out there" and the person that appears to be "in here" are not two separate things. They grow toward Quality or fall away from Quality together.” - Robert M. Pirsig

100. “The prospect of future lives in remote heavens as a compensation for the inadequacy of our present lives is a bad tradeoff for losing out on the present.” - Francis Harold Cook

101. “If you have time to be mindful, you have time to meditate.” - Ajahn Chah

102. “Commander, I always used to consider that you had a definite anti-authoritarian streak in you.”“Sir?”“It seems that you have managed to retain this even though you are authority.”“Sir?”“That’s practically zen.” - Terry Pratchett

103. “No praise, no blame. Just so.” - Isaac Marion

104. “A walk with a two-year-old is very Zen; it is not about the end but the journey. He needs to pet the dog someone is walking; to roll down the slight incline to the church basement, and then roll again, and again, and again; to remind me of the place where the wasps (he calls them bees) live, then zoom past it.” - Marc Aronson

105. “When angry, count to Zen.” - Leonard Scheff

106. “Sing before the spirits and dance with the earth deitiesAnd 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

107. “Hand over your responses to the man who triggers them, and you have already lost the battle for self. Look beyond, and find yourself there instead.” - Richard K Morgan

108. “Shigemori's body of work is a compelling manifesto for continuous cultural renewal.” - Christian Tschumi

109. “Activities such as chanting, bowing, and sitting in zazen are not at all wasted, even when done merely formally, for even this superficial encounter with the Dharma will have some wholesome outcome at a later time. However, it must be said in the most unambiguous terms that this is not real Zen. To follow the Dharma involves a complete reorientation of one's life in such a way that one's activities are manifestations of, and are filled with, a deeper meaning. If it were not otherwise, and merely sitting in zazen were enough, every frog in the pond would be enlightened, as one Zen master said. Dōgen Zenji himself said that one must practice Zen with the attitude of a person trying to extinguish a fire in his hair. That is, Zen must be practiced with an attitude of single-minded urgency.” - Francis Harold Cook

110. “Your body is like a dew-drop on the morning grass, your life is as brief as a flash of lightning. Momentary and vain, it is lost in a moment. (From 'Fukan zazengi')” - Dogen Zenji

111. “I am everything. I am nothing. I am powerful. I am forgotten.” - Jennifer Lynn Barnes

112. “Nothing needs to be done, and things get done.” - T. Scott McLeod

113. “I don’t know where I’m going on this path. I don’t know what I’m doing with my life. You had to be lost, before you could be found. These are the truths. You had to be confused, before you could find clarity; you had to suffer, before you could find peace. These were the only ways, life could happen. Of course you were confused before you found clarity. If you weren't confused, then you would already be clear. Of course you were lost before you were found. If you were already found, then you wouldn't be lost. Of course there would be suffering before peace. If there was already peace, then there wouldn't be suffering. One necessarily came before the other.” - T. Scott McLeod

114. “You will bring yourself the suffering you need to bring yourself so that you may awaken.” - T. Scott McLeod

115. “It is the rub that polishes the jewel,” Enso Roshi says. “Nobody ever gets to nirvana without going through samsara. Nobody ever gets to heaven, without going through hell. The center of all things, the truth, is surrounded by demons.” - T. Scott McLeod

116. “Life gives you exactly what you need to awaken.” - T. Scott McLeod

117. “In your big mind, everything has the same value...In your practice you should accept everything as it is, giving to each thing the same respect given to a Buddha. Here there is Buddhahood” - Shunryu Suzuki

118. “Every answer you ever need lies within your own silence..” - Ian Tucker

119. “Almost everything that I've ever worried about has never happened ..” - Ian Tucker

120. “I have lived with several Zen masters -- all of them cats.” - Eckhart Tolle

121. “Don't think of what you have to do, don't consider how to carry it out!" he exclaimed. "The shot will only go smoothly when it takes the archer himself by surprise.” - Eugen Herrigel

122. “You have described only too well," replied the Master, "where the difficulty lies...The right shot at the right moment does not come because you do not let go of yourself. You...brace yourself for failure. So long as that is so, you have no choice but to call forth something yourself that ought to happen independently of you, and so long as you call it forth your hand will not open in the right way--like the hand of a child.” - Eugen Herrigel

123. “The right art," cried the Master, "is purposeless, aimless! The more obstinately you try to learn how to shoot the arrow for the sake of hitting the goal, the less you will succeed in the one and the further the other will recede. What stands in your way is that you have a much too willful will. You think that what you do not do yourself does not happen.” - Eugen Herrigel

124. “This, then, is what counts: a lightning reaction which has no further need of conscious observation. In this respect at least the pupil makes himself independent of all conscious purpose.” - Eugen Herrigel

125. “We find what's in our own heads.” - T. Scott McLeod

126. “The way is not clear, and it is when you do not have clarity, when this is allowed, that you will finally have clarity.” - T. Scott McLeod

127. “When I was young, I lacked certainty, too,” he says. “I have the certainty, now, of not needing certainty. I have the certainty, of uncertainty. The peace, with being uncertain. All is good. All is holy. Whatever you choose, it can be fine. Hatred never ceases with hatred, but with love alone is healed. Rejection never ceases with rejection, but with acceptance alone is healed.” - T. Scott McLeod

128. “You want to know my name? --a hill, a tree. An empty drifting boat.” - Hsu Hsuan

129. “Regarding the creative: never assume you're the master, only the student. Your audience will determine if you're masterful.” - Don Roff

130. “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

131. “Ao relacionar-se com o mundo objetivo, por intermédio de suas faculdades, o mundo exterior torna-se real para o homem, e de fato é só o “amor” que faz o homem verdadeiramente crer na realidade do mundo objetivo a ele extrínseco. Sujeito e objeto não podem ser separados . “O olho transformou-se em olho humano quando seu objeto se converteu em um objeto humano, social, criado pelo homem e a este destinado... Eles [os sentidos] se relacionam com a coisa devido a esta, mas a coisa em si mesma é uma relação humana objetiva para si própria e para o homem, e vice-versa. A necessidade e o gozo perderam, assim, seu caráter egoísta, e a natureza perdeu sua mera utilidade pelo fato de sua utilização ter-se transformado em utilização humana. (Com efeito, só posso relacionar-me de maneira humana com uma coisa quando esta se relaciona de maneira humana com o homem)”Esta última afirmação é quase exatamente a mesma feita no pensamento do budismo Zen, assim como por Goethe. De fato o pensamento de Goethe, Hegel e Marx se acha intimamente ligado ao do Zen. O que há de comum neles é a ideia do homem superar a cisão entre sujeito e objeto; o objeto é um objeto, mas no entanto cessa de ser objeto , e nesta nova abordagem o homeme se funde com o objeto, conquanto ele e o objeto continuem a ser dois. O homem ao relacionar-se humanamente com o mundo objetivo, supera a alienação de si mesmo.” - Erich Fromm