Taisen Deshimaru Quotes

• Nobody today is normal, everybody is a little bit crazy or unbalanced, people's minds are running all the time. Their perceptions of the world are partial, incomplete. They are eaten alive by their egos. They think they see, but they are mistaken; all they do is project their madness, their world, upon the world. There is no clarity, no wisdom in that!

  Taisen Deshimaru

  Running, Crazy, Thinking

  66 Copy quote

• Human beings are afraid of dying. They are always running after something: money, honor, and pleasure. But if you had to die now, what would you want?

  Taisen Deshimaru

  Running, Honor, Dying

  48 Copy quote

• Behavior influences consciousness. Right behavior means right consciousness. Our attitude here and now influences the entire environment: our words, actions, ways of holding and moving ourselves, they all influence what happens around us and inside us. The actions of every instant, every day, must be right...Every gesture is important. How we eat, how we put on our clothes, how we wash ourselves, how we go to the toilet, how we put our things away, how we act with other people, family, wife, work - how we are: totally, in every single gesture.

  Taisen Deshimaru

  Attitude, Moving, Mean

  52 Copy quote

• Think with your whole body.

  Taisen Deshimaru

  Inspirational, Life, Buddhist

  "Wisdom of the Peaceful Warrior : A Companion to the Book That Changes Lives" by Dan Millman, p. 19, 2007.

  63 Copy quote

• To receive everything, one must open one's hands and give.

  Taisen Deshimaru

  Kindness, Helping Others, Hands

  "Treasury of Spiritual Wisdom : A Collection of 10,000 Powerful Quotations" by Andy Zubko, (p. 184), 2003.

  45 Copy quote

• Zen is not a particular state but the normal state: silent, peaceful, unagitated. In Zazen neither intention, analysis, specific effort nor imagination take place. It's enough just to be without hypocrisy, dogmatism, arrogance - embracing all opposites.

  Taisen Deshimaru

  Opposites, Imagination, Hypocrisy

  "The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Buddhist Wisdom" by Gill Farrer Halls, (p. 162), 2000.

  32 Copy quote

• Time is not a line, but a series of now-points.

  Taisen Deshimaru

  Mindfulness, Lines, Series

  32 Copy quote

• Descartes said, "I think, therefore I am." I say, "I do not think, that is why I exist."

  Taisen Deshimaru

  Thinking, Said

  30 Copy quote

• The body moves naturally, automatically, without any personal intervention or awareness. If we think too much, our actions become slow and hesitant.

  Taisen Deshimaru

  Moving, Thinking, Addiction

  36 Copy quote

• If you are not happy here and now, you never will be.

  Taisen Deshimaru

  Inspirational, Happiness, Happy

  "The Book of Positive Quotations" by John Cook, Steve Deger and Leslie Ann Gibson, (p. 279), 2007.

  58 Copy quote

• You must concentrate upon and consecrate yourself wholly to each day, as though a fire were raging in your hair.

  Taisen Deshimaru

  Warrior, Fire, Hair

  "Just Before Dark : Collected Nonfiction" by Jim Harrison, (p. 39), 1999.

  37 Copy quote

• To practice Zen or the Martial Arts, you must live intensely, wholeheartedly, without reserve - as if you might die in the next instant

  Taisen Deshimaru

  Art, Warrior, Practice

  44 Copy quote

• If you have a glass full of liquid you can discourse forever on its qualities, discuss whether it is cold, warm, whether it is really and truly composed of H-2-O, or even mineral water, or saki. Meditation is Drinking it!

  Taisen Deshimaru

  Buddhist, Drinking, Glasses

  "Real Magic : Creating Miracles in Everyday Life" by Wayne W. Dyer, (p. 123), 2001.

  50 Copy quote

• In a fight between a strong technique and a strong body, technique will prevail. In a fight between a strong mind and a strong technique, mind will prevail, because it will find the weak point.

  Taisen Deshimaru

  Strong, Fighting, Mind

  36 Copy quote

• You cannot separate any part from the whole: interdependence rules the cosmic order.

  Taisen Deshimaru

  Order, Cosmic, Interdependence

  33 Copy quote

• During zazen, brain and consciousness become pure. It's exactly like muddy water left to stand in a glass. Little by little, the sediment sinks to the bottom and the water becomes pure.

  Taisen Deshimaru

  Glasses, Water, Brain

  26 Copy quote

• You have to practice until you die.

  Taisen Deshimaru

  Practice, Dies

  "Leading from Within : Martial Arts Skills for Dynamic Business and Management" by Robert Pater, (p. 223), 1999.

  41 Copy quote

• Keep your hands open, and all the sands of the desert can pass through them. Close them, and all you can feel is a bit of grit.

  Taisen Deshimaru

  Inspirational, Hands, Grit

  "Zen to Go" by Jon Winokur, (p. 126), 1989.

  27 Copy quote

• We feel our shell keeps us safe, but it crushes us and others, and keeps out light and sun.

  Taisen Deshimaru

  Crush, Light, Shells

  "Zen Miracles : Finding Peace in an Insane World" by Brenda Shoshanna, (p. 80), 2002.

  28 Copy quote

• The silence of the mountain is even more beautiful once the birds are quiet.

  Taisen Deshimaru

  Beautiful, Climbing, Silence

  17 Copy quote

• 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

  Buddhist, Attitude, Opposites

  " Zen and the Art of Systems Analysis : Meditations on Computer Systems Development" by Patrick McDermott, (p. xix), 2002.

  24 Copy quote

• What is called zazen is sitting on a zafu [pillow] in a quiet room, absolutely still, in the exact and proper position and without uttering a word, the mind empty of any thought, good or wicked. It is continuing to sit peacefully, facing a wall, and nothing more. Every day.

  Taisen Deshimaru

  Wall, Mind, Wicked

  23 Copy quote

• If we achieve satori and the satori shows, like a bit of dogshit stuck to the top of our nose, that is not so good.

  Taisen Deshimaru

  Noses, Achieve, Satori

  14 Copy quote

• We should learn to think with our fingers.

  Taisen Deshimaru

  Thinking, Should, Fingers

  "Meditation" by Jose Lorenzo-Fuentes, (p. 113), 2003.

  9 Copy quote

• From your first day at school you are cut off from life to make theories.

  Taisen Deshimaru

  School, Cutting, Firsts

  9 Copy quote

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