quotations about Zen
Even if we shear away all the Asian symbols and rituals, we can't deny that Zen is a meditation practice rooted in Buddhist spirituality. Everything about it points to the Buddha's experience of the true nature of self.
PERLE BESSERMAN & MANFRED STEGER
Grassroots Zen
Married university professors and authors Manfred Steger and Perle Besserman studied first under the cultural weight of Japanese Zen, then with the light-footed lay master Robert Aitken. Founders of the Princeton Area Zen Group in NJ, they have been teaching their democratic, grassroots-style of Zen for over twenty-five years.
It is quite false to imagine that Zen is a sort of individualistic, subjective purity in which the monk seeks to rest and find spiritual refreshment by the discovery and enjoyment of his own interiority. It is not a subtle form of spiritual self-gratification, a repose in the depths of one's own inner silence. Nor is it by any means a simple withdrawel from the outer world of matter to an inner world of spirit. The first and most elementary fact about Zen is its abhorrence of this dualistic division between matter and spirit. Any criticism of Zen that presupposes such a division is, therefore, bound to go astray.
THOMAS MERTON
Mystics and Zen Masters
Thomas Merton (January 31, 1915 - December 10, 1968) was an American Trappist monk, writer, theologian, mystic, poet, social activist, and scholar of comparative religion. Among Merton's most enduring works is his bestselling autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain (1948).
Half of Zen is nonsense. Half of Zen is good sense. Half of Zen is both. Half of Zen is neither half. How can this be? And so?
FRANK MACHOVEC
Buddha, Tao, Zen: Mystic Triad
Frank MacHovec was a psychologist who began his study of Eastern philosophies as a Marine during the Korean War, wanting "to understand the mind of the enemy."
Zen is a double-edged sword, killing words and thoughts, yet at the same time, giving them life. Although beyond human intellect and philosophy, Zen is their root and source.
MASAO ABE
Zen and Western Thought
Masao Abe (1915 - 2006) was a Japanese Buddhist philosopher and religious studies scholar best known for his work in comparative religion, developing a Buddhist-Christian interfaith dialogue which later also included Judaism.
One of the many principles of Zen is living a minimalist life. It marks the distinctive difference between needs and wants.
SUJA NATARAJAN
"What can you do without?", Deccan Herald, January 9, 2016
We live in a supermarket of ideas, faiths, practices, theories, ideologies, and much else besides. Never in human history have there been so many movements and ideas struggling to attract our attention. Added to this, the Western world is swamped by material goods and the Western mind is dominated by the goal of material success. In all this confusion, Zen stands out as a voice of sanity. It represents a different way of seeing the world, one based upon the rediscovery of who we really are and have always been, through revealing to us our true nature.
DAVID FONTANA
Discover Zen
David Fontana (1 November 1934 - 18 October 2010) was a British psychologist, parapsychologist and author. He served as the first president of the British Psychological Society's Transpersonal Section and wrote on such topics as Buddhism, meditation, dreams, symbols, the psychology of religion, Christianity and survival.
To come into Zen is not about the leadership aspect. It is about practicing, opening ourselves, digging deep, diving deep, and with that living lives of care and respect and possibility.
JAMES FORD
"Zen Becoming Western", Patheos, December 4, 2016
James Ishmael Ford blogs as "Monkey Mind" on Patheos. The blog's motto is "easily distracted." It mostly addresses Zen life in the West, but also explores the currents of liberal and progressive religion, politics, and culture.
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
Fight Club
Chuck Palahniuk (born February 21, 1962) is an American novelist who describes his work as transgressional fiction. His award-winning novel Fight Club, was made into a film of the same name, starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton.
To me, Zen practice offers a kind of thin place, a "place" where we can discover that there is fundamentally no separation between ourselves and others, that what we seek is always so close, always right here.
ROSHI PAT ENKYO O'HARA
"What is Zen?", Upaya Institute and Zen Center
Enkyō Pat O'Hara is a Soto priest and teacher in the Harada-Yasutani lineage of Zen Buddhism. She served as co-spiritual director of the Zen Peacemaker Order and is a former professor of interactive media at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.
Zen is: never meeting expectations.
JON RAPPOPORT
"Zen is: never meeting expectations", Jon Rappoport's Blog, August 16, 2015
Jon Rappoport (born April 16, 1938) worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the U.S. and Europe.
Just as Zen lets us transcend our own smallness, so it also helps our business thinking move beyond small-minded greed, destructive competitiveness, or getting stuck in the past. It's no accident that Zen keeps being associated with Steve Jobs -- one of the most innovative leaders of all times.
GINNY WHITELAW
"3 Common Myths about Zen and Why Zen Helps Leaders", Institute for Zen Leadership
Ginny Jiko Whitelaw is the founder and CEO of the Institute for Zen Leadership. A biophysicist by training, she combines a rich scientific background with senior leadership experience at NASA, and more than 25 years developing leaders at such companies as Novartis, Dell, Merck, T. Rowe Price, Sprint, Mercer, Ascension Health, and JNJ.
Zen is a special transmission outside the Canonical Scriptures; it does not depend upon texts.
ROBERT LINSSEN
Living Zen
Robert Linssen (11 April 1911 - 15 May 2004) was a Belgian Zen Buddhist and author.
Zen is neither a bystander's philosophy nor a principle, but an all-embracing human activity, a way of life, a way of identification--a subtle way of establishing our own subjecthood in no-mindedness.
SOIKU SHIGEMATSU
A Zen Harvest
Sōiku Shigematsu (born October 13, 1943) is a Japanese priest of the Myoshin-ji branch of the Rinzai School of Zen Buddhism. His pioneering translation of the two most important Japanese collections of capping phrases or jakugo is acknowledged as the magnum opus of the contemporary English-speaking Zen world.
Zen is about the process. It does not have an absolute goal, because there is no goal.
PERLE BESSERMAN & MANFRED STEGER
Grassroots Zen
Married university professors and authors Manfred Steger and Perle Besserman studied first under the cultural weight of Japanese Zen, then with the light-footed lay master Robert Aitken. Founders of the Princeton Area Zen Group in NJ, they have been teaching their democratic, grassroots-style of Zen for over twenty-five years.
One has to reach to the absolute state of awareness: that is Zen. You cannot do it every morning for a few minutes or for half an hour and then forget all about it. It has to become like your heartbeat. You have to sit in it, you have to walk in it. Yes, you have even to sleep in it.
OSHO
Walking in Zen, Sitting in Zen
Osho (11 December 1931 - 19 January 1990) was an Indian godman, mystic, and founder of the Rajneesh movement. He emphasized the importance of meditation, mindfulness, love, celebration, courage, creativity, and humor--qualities that he viewed as being suppressed by adherence to static belief systems and religious tradition. In advocating a more open attitude to human sexuality, he caused controversy in India during the late 1960s and became known as "the sex guru".
Zen, like life, defies exact definition, but its essence is the experience, moment by moment, of our own existence -- a natural, spontaneous encounter, unclouded by the suppositions and expectations that come between us and reality. It is, if you like, a paring down of life until we see it as it really is, free from our illusions; it is merely a divestment of ourselves until we recognize our own true nature.
DAVID FONTANA
Discover Zen
David Fontana (1 November 1934 - 18 October 2010) was a British psychologist, parapsychologist and author. He served as the first president of the British Psychological Society's Transpersonal Section and wrote on such topics as Buddhism, meditation, dreams, symbols, the psychology of religion, Christianity and survival.
Most writers agree on the fact that Zen is not to be understood but to be lived; and far from being incompatible with the requirements of everyday life, Zen confers on it its own full revealing value.
ROBERT LINSSEN
Living Zen
Robert Linssen (11 April 1911 - 15 May 2004) was a Belgian Zen Buddhist and author.
No one is ever more him/herself than when they really laugh. Their defenses are down. It's very Zen-like, that moment. They are completely open.
GEORGE CARLIN
Last Words
George Carlin (May 12, 1937 - June 22, 2008) was an American stand-up comedian, actor, social critic, and author. Known for his dark comedy and reflections on politics, the English language, psychology, religion, and taboo subjects, he was dubbed "the dean of counterculture comedians".
If Zen is approached with the usual mental attitude, it will seem quite incomprehensible. Our average Western intellectuality would consider its paradoxical language simply as a play upon words. Its full significance is revealed only when we approach it in a different manner, making our minds available to the new processes of inner perception which it suggests.
ROBERT LINSSEN
Living Zen
Robert Linssen (11 April 1911 - 15 May 2004) was a Belgian Zen Buddhist and author.
Zen ... does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.
ALAN WATTS
The Way of Zen
Alan Watts (6 January 1915 - 16 November 1973) was a British writer and speaker known for interpreting and popularizing Buddhism, Taoism, and Hinduism for a Western audience. He introduced the emerging hippie counterculture to The Way of Zen (1957) and explored human consciousness and psychedelics in works such as The New Alchemy (1958) and The Joyous Cosmology (1962).