1. “All that we are, is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think, we become.”
2. “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.”
3. “Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.”
4. “To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.”
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5. “Not everything happens for a reason. Nature is not rational. Just make peace with whatever happens.”
6. “When you do something, you should burn yourself up completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.”
7. “Things are as they are. Looking out into the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations.”
8. “When you realize nothing is lacking, the whole world belongs to you.”
9. “There’s a Zen to acting, by being in the moment. That’s where the power is.”
10. “Working out is my biggest hobby. It’s my Zen hour. I just zone out.”
11. “The less you judge things, including the contents of your mind, the more clearly you’ll see them.”
12. “I am not a big technology person. I don’t go on the Internet really much at all. Drawing is like a zen thing; it’s private, which in this day and age is harder to come by.”
13. “As a bee gathering nectar does not harm or disturb the color and fragrance of the flower; so do the wise move through the world.”
14. “If there is an ascension, it comes from not caring about the ascendence.”
15. “Suffering is how Life tells you that you are resisting or misperceiving what is real and true.”
16. “Cooking is one of the most zen things – you have to be there.”
17. “If you think the cause of your problem is ‘out there,’ you’ll try to solve it from the outside.”
18. “Life is good when we stop trying to force it to be a certain way.”
19. “Zen, per se, is not just an art, it’s not just a religion, it’s a realisation.”
20. “One thing I like about Zen. It doesn’t believe in achievement.”
21. “Zen Buddhism is a discipline where belief isn’t necessary.”
22. “I never thought much about God, certainly never wondered whether God was thinking about me, until I fell in love with a Zen Buddhist priest.”
23. “Self-realization is effortless. What you are trying to find is what you already are.”
24. “I read a lot of Zen books. And I grew up surfing, so that has always been my escape.”
25. “I snap at people I love all the time, and that makes me feel bad about myself. I want to be Zen. I am so not Zen. Whatever Zen is, I’m the opposite of it.”
26. “My look is either very baroque or very Zen – everything in between makes me itch.”
27. “When you accept what is, every moment is the best moment. That is enlightenment.”
28. “Well, for one thing, in the tradition of Zen that I’ve practiced, there is no prayerful worship and there is no affirmation of a deity.”
29. “When thoughts arise, then do all things arise. When thoughts vanish, then do all things vanish.”
30. “Children are natural Zen masters; their world is brand new in each and every moment.”
31. “Nothing ever exists entirely alone. Everything is in relation to everything else.”
32. “I don’t have a preconception of a perfect day because if I did then it would ruin the day that I was living.”
33. “You give power to whatever you give your attention to. When you look within, you empower yourself.”
34. “My blogging life is basically goalless. I like the zen nature of that, and paradoxically, it improves results.”
35. “At my Rolling Stones’ tour, the camera was a protection. I used it in a Zen way.”
36. “There are things that I value now that I didn’t when I first went over there, like Zen Buddhism, which has become part of my life over the last couple years.”
37. “I am a very spiritual person; I could say a Catholic with a strong underpinning of Zen.”
38. “The practice of Zen is forgetting the self in the act of uniting with something.”
39. “Observe a person or event for a length of time, deliberately holding yourself back from forming an opinion.”
40. “To think in terms of either pessimism or optimism oversimplifies the truth. The problem is to see reality as it is.”
41. “Desire is a contract that you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.”
42. “There’s something Zen-like about the way I work – it’s like raking gravel in a Zen Buddhist garden.”
43. “Detachment is not that you should own nothing but that nothing should own you.”
44. “I like the Zen artists; they’d do some work, and then they’d stop for a while.”
45. “In Japanese art, space assumed a dominant role and its position was strengthened by Zen concepts.”
46. “What you are looking for is already in you…You already are everything you are seeking.”
47. “Sometime’s life’s a drag. That’s ok. Let yourself feel everything honestly and fully. Don’t deny reality.”
48. “To accept some idea of truth without experiencing it is like a painting of a cake on paper which you cannot eat.”
49. “Comfort and security are not part of the ultimate purpose of the universe.”
50. “The only Zen you can find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there.”
51. “When I feel like dancing, I dance. I don’t care if anyone else is dancing or if everyone else is laughing at me. I dance.”
52. “All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness”
53. “Nothing can give you joy. Joy is uncaused and arises from within as the joy of Being.”
54. “And when they played they really played. And when they worked they really worked.”
55. “Everything that has a beginning has an ending. Make your peace with that and all will be well.”
56. “My feeling or philosophy is closer to Taoism and Zen Buddhism, ’cause it’s the most practical.”
57. “Throughout this life, you can never be certain of living long enough to take another breath.”
58. “A person who thinks all the time has nothing to think about except thoughts. So he loses touch with Reality, and lives in a world of illusion.”
59. “Green politics at its worst amounts to a sort of Zen fascism; less extreme, it denounces growth and seeks to stop the world so that we can all get off.”
60. “Whenever we’re envious we’re wrong because the things that other people have don’t make them happy. They make themselves happy.”
61. “Zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration on our usual everyday routine.”
62. “Golf is a spiritual game. It’s like Zen. You have to let your mind take over.”
63. “This dew like life fades away; time speeds swiftly. In this short life of ours, avoid involvement in superfluous things and just study the Way.”
64. “The fundamental delusion – there is something out there that will make me happy and fulfilled forever.”
65. “The way I meditate is by being organised. I can get real Zen if I go home and tidy the front room.”
66. “Wisdom says we are nothing. Love says we are everything. Between these two our life flows.”
67. “One must be deeply aware of the impermanence of the world.”
68. “If you see Nirvana as somewhere outside the mind, you’re deluding yourself.”
69. “If you study the writings of the mystics, you will always find things in them that appear to be paradoxes, as in Zen, particularly.”
