Zen Quotes - Page 3

Haiku is not a shriek, a howl, a sigh, or a yawn; rather, it is the deep breath of life.

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.

In pale moonlight / the wisteria's scent / comes from far away.

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

we're lost where the mind can't find us
utterly lost

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

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

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

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.

clouds very high look
not one word helped them get up there

born born everything is always born
thinking about it try not to

Does one really have to fret
About enlightenment?
No matter what road I travel,
I’m going home.

What we can change is our perceptions, which have the effect of changing everything.

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.

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.

Zen is a journey of exploration and a way of living that, in and of itself, does not belong to any one religion or tradition. It is about experiencing life in the here and now and about removing the dualistic distinctions between "I" and "you" between "subject" and "objective", between our spiritual and our ordinary, everyday activities.

What determines each person's state of happiness or unhappiness is not the event itself, but what the event means to that person.

It is not enough to believe in yourself alone; there will come a day when you will fail yourself. That is why we must also believe in a supportive power beyond our control - a safety net, a super intelligence - or there is no hope for the moment when all our strength is gone.

We took a bus to the nearby monastery of one of the last great Tang dynasty Chan masters, Yun-men. Yun-men was known for his pithy “one word” Zen. When asked “What is the highest teaching of the Buddha?” he replied: “An appropriate statement.” On another occasion, he answered: “Cake.” I admired his directness.

For some reason when I type the word "love" in my iPad it keeps autocorrecting to "live". I find it oddly profound. My ipad IS. My iPad is ZEN:

“Only the iPad that autocorrects can write the true thing.