Monasteries Quotes - Page 3

• In the old days, Zen was not really practiced so much in a monastery. The Zen Master usually lived up on a top of the mountain or the hill or in the forest or sometimes in the village.

  Frederick Lenz

  Mountain, Village, Forests

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• There are two primary ways of studying Zen. Either an individual will enter into a Zen monastery and study with a Zen master there, or they will study with a Zen master who lives in the contemporary world.

  Frederick Lenz

  Two, World, Way

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• There are monasteries in Japan where they teach Zen with rules, more rules than you can imagine, and you might feel comfortable with that. I don't teach that type of Zen.

  Frederick Lenz

  Japan, Might, Imagine

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• One learns more of Christ in being married and rearing children than in several lifetimes spent in study in a monastery.

  Martin Luther

  Education, Children, Study

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• We don't get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Because this is our life. Life is brief, and then you die, you know? So this is what we've chosen to do with our life. We could be sitting in a monastery somewhere in Japan. We could be out sailing. Some of the team could be playing golf. They could be running other companies. And we've all chosen to do this with our lives. So it better be damn good. It better be worth it. And we think it is.

  Steve Jobs

  Running, Team, Creativity

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• An order given in battle, an instruction issued by the master of a sailing ship, a cry for help, are as powerful in modifying the course of events as any other bodily act...You utter a vow or forge a signature and you may find yourself bound for life to a monastery, a woman or prison.

  Bronislaw Malinowski

  Powerful, Commitment, Order

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• I had a real yearning to make use of the opportunities I had at school. When I heard about the gap year of teaching English at a Tibetan monastery, I knew I had to do something about it really quickly, otherwise it was going to get allocated.

  Benedict Cumberbatch

  Real, Teaching, School

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• Sometimes, sitting there on the cushion failing to watch your breath, it can feel like you’re the only weirdo weird enough to be wasting your time in this way. But you’re not! There are generations of weirdos, monasteries full of them, and we have the benefit of their accumulated wisdom.

  Jay Michaelson

  Watches, Generations, Sitting

  Jay Michaelson (2013). “Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Enlightenment”, p.108, North Atlantic Books

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• If the world is crazy, maybe it needs a few sane people in the middle of it. Why do monks lock themselves up in monasteries? What's the good of solving your personal suffering if the solution keeps you isolated from everyone else's suffering?

  Tim Ward

  Crazy, People, Suffering

  Tim Ward (2013). “What the Buddha Never Taught: A 'Behind the Robes" Account of Life in a Thai Forest Monastery”, p.47, Changemakers Books

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• Religion does not mean just precepts, a temple, monastery, or other external signs, for these as well as hearing and thinking are subsidiary factors in taming the mind.

  Dalai Lama

  Mean, Thinking, Mind

  The Dalai Lama, Tsongkhapa (2017). “The Great Exposition of Secret Mantra, Volume 2: Deity Yoga”, p.5, Shambhala Publications

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• Martin Luther dreamed up Protestantism while sitting on the toilet at Wittenburg monastery, and we know what a big movement that became.

  Anton Szandor LaVey

  Sitting, Movement, Toilets

  Anton Szandor LaVey (2000). “The Devil's Notebook”, p.57, Feral House

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• Provided they live a worthy life, both those who choose to dwell in the midst of noise and hubbub and those who dwell in monasteries, mountains and caves can achieve salvation. Solely because of their faith in Him God bestows great blessings on them. Hence those who because of their laziness have failed to attain salvation will have no excuse to offer on the day of judgment. For He who promised to grant us salvation simply on account of our faith in Him is not a liar.

  Symeon the New Theologian

  Christian, Liars, Blessing

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• We need to make our own the ancient pastoral wisdom which... encouraged Pastors to listen more widely to the entire People of God. Significant is Saint Benedict's reminder to the Abbot of a monastery, inviting him to consult even the youngest members of the community: "By the Lord's inspiration, it is often a younger person who knows what is best".

  Pope John Paul II

  Faith, Inspiration, People

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• Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, and devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad.

  Neal Stephenson

  Art, Revenge, Real

  "Snow Crash". Book by Neal Stephenson, 1992.

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• The Bön texts are thousands of years old, and I am sure that not even 7 percent of what is still in monasteries, libraries and caves has been translated. Even without taking into consideration the spiritual aspect, Bön should be preserved as a treasure for humanity just for its cultural aspect.

  Anne Klein

  Spiritual, Years, Humanity

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• I do not wonder that, where the monastick life is permitted, every order finds votaries, and every monastery inhabitants. Men will submit to any rule, by which they may be exempted from the tyranny of caprice and of chance. They are glad to supply by external authority their own want of constancy and resolution, and court the government of others, when long experience has convinced them of their own inability to govern themselves.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Order, Discipline

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1799). “Life of Johnson: Including Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides and Johnson's Diary of a Journey Into North Wales”, p.422

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• 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.

  Stephen Batchelor

  Teaching, Men, Cake

  Stephen Batchelor (2010). “Confession of a Buddhist Atheist”, p.89, Spiegel & Grau

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• The Monks of Cool, whose tiny and exclusive monastery is hidden in a really cool and laid-back valley in the lower Ramtops, have a passing-out test for a novice. He is taken into a room full of all types of clothing and asked: Yo, my son, which of these is the most stylish thing to wear? And the correct answer is: Hey, whatever I select.

  Terry Pratchett

  Taken, Son, Novices

  "Lords And Ladies". Book by Terry Pratchett, 1992.

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• I have always hated crowds. I like deserts, prisons, and monasteries. I have discovered, too, that there are fewer idiots at 3000 meters above sea level than down below.

  Jean Giono

  Sea, Desert, Levels

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• Father monks, why do you fast! Why do you expect reward in heaven for that?...No, saintly monk, you try being virtuous in the world, do good to society, without shutting yourself up in a monastery at other people's expense, and without expecting a reward up aloft for it--you'll find that a bit harder.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Father, People, Heaven

  Fyodor Dostoevsky (2017). “The Brothers Karamazov (English Russian Edition illustrated): Братья Карамазовы (англо-русская редакция иллюстрированная)”, p.208, Clap Publishing, LLC.

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• The man who lives in a small community lives in a much larger world. He knows much more of the fierce variety and uncompromising divergences of men…In a large community, we can choose our companions. In a small community, our companions are chosen for us. Thus in all extensive and highly civilized society groups come into existence founded upon sympathy, and shut out the real world more sharply than the gates of a monastery. There is nothing really narrow about the clan; the thing which is really narrow is the clique.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Real, Men, Community

  "Heretics". Chapter XIV: "On Certain Modern Writers and the Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton, Institution of the Family", 1905.

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• I'm sitting her thinking, -God, I swear I will take a vow of silence and move to a monastery and worship you for all my days if you just this once provide me with an invisibility cloak, come on, come on, please please invisibility cloak now now now-. It's very possible that Jane is thinking the same thing, I have no idea, because she's not talking either, and I can't look at her on account of how I'm blinded by embarrassment.

  John Green

  Moving, Thinking, Invisibility Cloak

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• Mystics are all a bit funny in the head anyway," the priest added cynically, "which is why the church locks them all up in mental hospitals and euphemistically calls these institutions monasteries.

  Robert Anton Wilson

  Church, Locks, Institutions

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• Damned mating heat. Lawe is threatening to join a monastery and Rule's threatening to quit. Why don't you two try to show the younger guys it can be fun instead of taking a note out of everyone else's books and letting it drive you insane? -Jonas

  Lora Leigh

  Fun, Book, Two

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• The problem with monasteries, ashrams, convents is these institutions become extremely political. In other words, they're really small societies, and much of what you hope to avoid in societies you find there.

  Frederick Lenz

  Political, Problem, Institutions

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