Zen Master Quotes - Page 2

• We call it the transmission of the lamp in Zen. That's when we take enlightened states of mind and literally, you can transfer them, just like you can hand somebody flowers.

  Frederick Lenz

  Flower, Hands, Mind

  4 Copy quote

• Inspiration comes from everything from the entire world, and its hard to pinpoint one thing. I can trace one inspiration to the writing of 13th-century Zen master Dogen Zenji, who writes beautifully about time.

  Ruth Ozeki

  Inspiration, Writing, World

  4 Copy quote

• The highest teaching is never written down. It's only communicated from teacher to student because it's a "transmission of the lamp." It's a transmission of mind.

  Frederick Lenz

  Teacher, Teaching, Mind

  5 Copy quote

• The Zen Master warns: 'If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him!' This admonition points up that no meaning that comes from outside of ourselves is real. The Buddhahood of each of us has already been obtained. We need only recognize it. Philosophy, religion, patriotism, all are empty idols. The only meaning in our lives is what we each bring to them. Killing the Buddha on the road means destroying the hope that anything outside of ourselves can be out master. No one is any bigger than anyone else. There are no mothers or fathers for grown-ups, only sisters and brothers.

  Sheldon B. Kopp

  Mother, Brother, Father

  SHELDON B KOPP (1972). “IF YOU MEET THE BUDDHA ON THE ROAD KILL HIM THE PILGRIMAGE OF PSYCHOTHERAPY PATIENTS”

  37 Copy quote

  Show source

• Chi is developed through meditation, through studying with one who has a great deal of it.

  Frederick Lenz

  Meditation, Study, Masters

  4 Copy quote

• What are you, Zen Master Fang?

  Charlaine Harris

  Masters, Fangs

  Charlaine Harris (2012). “Deadlocked: A Sookie Stackhouse Novel”, p.155, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The teacher is transmitting pure awareness and consciousness.

  Frederick Lenz

  Teacher, Consciousness, Awareness

  4 Copy quote

• Until today, it really pissed me off that I'd become this totally centered Zen Master and nobody had noticed. Still, I'm doing the little FAX thing. I write little HAIKU things and FAX them around to everyone. When I pass people in the hall at work, I get totally ZEN right in everyone's hostile little FACE.

  Chuck Palahniuk

  Writing, People, Fax

  4 Copy quote

• I'm a Zen Master. I'm an occult teacher. I teach people how to become that, how to be perfect.

  Frederick Lenz

  Teacher, Buddhism, People

  4 Copy quote

• I've been in these tabloids for 14 years now, and at some point you just become a Zen master of it all

  Brad Pitt

  Years, Tabloids, Masters

  "Brad Pitt tries to be 'Zen master' of tabloids". www.today.com. June 7, 2005.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• At Patagonia, making a profit is not the goal because the Zen master would say profits happen 'when you do everything else right'.

  Yvon Chouinard

  Goal, Masters, Patagonia

  Yvon Chouinard (2006). “Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman”, p.160, Penguin

  55 Copy quote

  Show source

• A master of an art is someone who's been mastered by the art. They've become so one with what they teach that you can't tell the teacher from the student.

  Frederick Lenz

  Teacher, Art, Students

  4 Copy quote

• If you're very, very conservative and you like that sort of practice, go find a very conservative Zen master and just do traditional Japanese practice, which is not that traditional actually.

  Frederick Lenz

  Practice, Conservative, Masters

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• You have to begin to develop a repertory of jokes, multi-plane spiritual jokes, the sort of things the Zen masters tell each other when they're asleep. These are the secret teachings.

  Frederick Lenz

  Spiritual, Teacher, Teaching

  4 Copy quote

• A Zen master, when asked where he would go after he died, replied, 'To Hell, for that's where help is needed most.'

  Philip Kapleau

  Fun, Earth Day, Helping

  Philip Kapleau (1980). “Zen: dawn in the West”, Doubleday

  28 Copy quote

  Show source

• If we had the consciousness of a cat or a dog, we would have it in us to become perfect Zen masters. We could gnaw on a bone, take a nap, play with a spider until we killed it, get our litter just right, and be innocently and serenely present. Meaning would mean nothing to us, nor would we need it to mean anything. We would be free, and we would be spared. But, we are human beings, and we posses that odd duck – human consciousness.

  Eric Maisel

  Dog, Mean, Cat

  Eric Maisel, PhD (2012). “The Van Gogh Blues: The Creative Person s Path Through Depression”, p.65, New World Library

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• When Zen masters say `effortlessness` they are referring to the state when your enlightenment is well rooted. Now there is no need of any effort; now you can be relaxed and at ease, it will grow on its own accord. It will bring much foliage, and many flowers, and many blessings.

  Rajneesh

  Flower, Blessing, Effort

  4 Copy quote

• Everyone needs a spiritual guide: a minister, rabbi, counselor, wise friend, or therapist. My own wise friend is my dog. He has deep knowledge to impart. He makes friends easily and doesn't hold a grudge. He enjoys simple pleasures and takes each day as it comes. Like a true Zen master he eats when he is hungry and sleeps when he is tired. He's not hung up about sex. Best of all, he befriends me with an unconditional love that human beings would do well to imitate.

  Gary A. Kowalski

  Wise, Spiritual, Dog

  7 Copy quote

• Happiness only comes when you let go of who you think you are. If you think you're wealthy and powerful and noble and truthful or horrible and demonic, whatever it may be, it's all a waste of time. Take it from the Zen Master. He knows.

  Frederick Lenz

  Happiness, Letting Go, Powerful

  4 Copy quote

• A Zen master used to say, It is clear and so it is hard to see. A dunce once searched for a fire with a lighted lantern. Had he known what fire was, he could have cooked his rice much sooner.

  Rajneesh

  Fire, Dunces, Used

  11 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• A Zen master is someone whose life is one with enlightenment and self-discovery. They can never be separated from that. They've been essentially mastered by Zen.

  Frederick Lenz

  Discovery, Self, Enlightenment

  4 Copy quote

• One Zen master said, The whole universe is my true personality. This is a very wonderful saying... If you want to see what you truly are, open the window, and everything you see is in fact the expression of your inner reality. Can you embrace all of it?

  Adyashanti

  Reality, Expression, Personality

  Adyashanti (2011). “Falling into Grace: Insights on the End of Suffering”, p.220, Sounds True

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• Deluded beings think that if they get in a battle with a Zen Master or with a Don Juan, that it's going enhance their life if they win. You can never take power from someone else any more than you can take sunlight.

  Frederick Lenz

  Buddhism, Winning, Thinking

  4 Copy quote