Zen Quotes

In today’s world, we constantly come across people or unfortunate events that negatively affect our well-being and our everyday life. This leads us to teach ourselves to be self-focused and self-protective against dangerous individuals and situations. This world has also pushed us to crave for more and avoid people that don’t share the same outlook as we do. We live our life worried as to what tomorrow brings wondering if everything will still be in our favor. However, if we really look around us and ourselves closely, these things do not give us a happy, fulfilling life. Our need seems to never end and yet it feels like nothing is ever enough. We can’t help but ask ourselves, “Why does it have to be this way?”

As we reach into this level of consciousness, our spiritual eyes start to open and our curious minds start to analyze things. Then we found Zen! We begin to practice how to wake up and how to turn sufferings into ease and joy. These are all realized using the method of meditation. Although some people find Zen difficult to do, it has certainly helped the majority overcome the daily challenges in life, acquire peace of mind, and develop a better understanding of what life really is.

The following Zen quotes are from people who find Zen as a great practice and who know the understanding of its meaning and purpose.

Zen Quotes

1. Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own. – Bruce Lee

2. Mistakes are always forgivable if one has the courage to admit them. – Bruce Lee

3. Don’t fear failure. Not failure, but low aim, is the crime. In great attempts, it is glorious even to fail. – Bruce Lee

4. If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done. – Bruce Lee

5. A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at. – Bruce Lee

6. A Buddhist monk has a responsibility first and foremost to themselves, and that’s to find the truth each day in every part of their life. – Frederick Lenz

7. No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding. If you understand, and you show that you understand, you can love, and the situation will change. – Thích Nhat Hanh

8. Zen, per se, is not just an art, it’s not just a religion, it’s a realization. – Gene Clark

9. Your problems never cease. They just change. – Phil Jackson

10. Wisdom is always an overmatch for strength. – Phil Jackson

11. Always keep an open mind and a compassionate heart. – Phil Jackson

12. Approach the game with no preset agendas and you’ll probably come away surprised at your overall efforts. – Phil Jackson

13. I gave it my body and mind, but I have kept my soul. – Phil Jackson

14. Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet. – Thich Nhat Hanh

15. Learning to let go should be learned before learning to get. Life should be touched, not strangled. You’ve got to relax, let it happen at times, and at others move forward with it. – Ray Bradbury

16. Life is a journey. Time is a river. The door is ajar – Jim Butcher

17. Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes. – Alan Watts

18. My blogging life is basically goalless. I like the zen nature of that, and paradoxically, it improves results. – Seth Godin

19. The way I meditate is by being organized. I can get real Zen if I go home and tidy the front room. – Anthony Joshua

20. 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. – Leonard Cohen

21. Do not let the behavior of others destroy your inner peace. – Dalai Lama

22. What was never lost can never be found. – Zen Proverb

23. Those who are awake, live in a state of constant amazement. – Buddha

24. The true miracle is not walking on water or walking in air, but simply walking on this earth. – Thích Nhất Hạnh

25. If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present. – Lao Tzu

26. Life is like stepping onto a boat which is about to sail out to sea and sink. –  Shunryu Suzuki

27. Don’t seek, don’t search, don’t ask, don’t knock, don’t demand: relax.  – Osho

28. Old friends pass away, new friends appear. It is just like the days. An old day passes, a new day arrives. The important thing is to make it meaningful: a meaningful friend, or a meaningful day. – Dalai Lama

29. All that we are, is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think, we become. – Buddha

30. Be master of mind rather than mastered by mind. – Zen Proverb

31. When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. – Lao Tzu

32. American dog says, ‘Woof, woof.’ Korean dog says, ‘Mung, mung.’ Polish dog says, ‘How, how.’ So which dog barking is correct? That is human beings’ barking, not ‘dog’ barking. If dog and you become one hundred percent one, then you know the sound of barking. This is Zen teaching. Boom! Become one. – Seung Sahn

33. The only Zen you can find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there. – Robert M. Pirsig

34. I’m a walker, whether that’s a stroll on the beach at sunset or getting up at eight o’clock on a Sunday morning and doing an eight-hour hike through a canyon. It’s Zen time for me. – Lara Pulver

35. Working out is my biggest hobby. It’s my Zen hour. I just zone out. – Zac Efron

36. Children are natural Zen masters; their world is brand new in each and every moment. – John Bradshaw

37. Zen teaches that once we can open up to the inevitability of our demise, we can begin to transform that situation and lighten up about it. – Allen Klein

38. Whether you are a genius or an idiot, a thief or, like me, a Zen priest who has cultivated the mind for 30 years,  the mind anyway is subject to conditions. – Zoketsu Norman Fischer

39. Surfing soothes me, it’s always been a kind of Zen experience for me. The ocean is so magnificent, peaceful, and awesome. The rest of the world disappears for me when I’m on a wave. – Paul Walker

40. Respect life, revere life. There is nothing more holy than life, nothing more divine than life. – Osho

41. When you seek it, you cannot find it. – Zen Proverb

42. The trouble is, you think you have time. – Buddha

43. To a mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders. – Chuang Tzu

44. Each morning, we are born again. What we do today is what matters most. – Buddha

45. We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want. – Lao Tzu

46. Move and the way will open. – Zen Proverb

47. The purpose of our lives is to be happy. – Dalai Lama

48. Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them. – Dalai Lama

49. If you realize you have enough, you are truly rich. – Lao Tzu

50. When we meet real tragedy in life, we can react in two ways, either by losing hope and falling into self-destructive habits, or by using the challenge to find our inner strength. Thanks to the teachings of Buddha, I have been able to take this second way. – Dalai Lama

51. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. – Zen Proverb

52. Prefer to be defeated in the presence of the wise than to excel among fools. – Dōgen Zenji

53. We do not exist for the sake of something else. We exist for the sake of ourselves. – Shunryu Suzuki

54. To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself. – Thích Nhất Hạnh

55. To seek is to suffer. To seek nothing is bliss. – Bodhidharma

56. In a mind clear as still water, even the waves, breaking, are reflecting its light. – Dōgen Zenji

57. To understand everything is to forgive everything. – Buddha

58. Man stands in his own shadow and wonders why it is dark. – Zen Proverb

59. To receive everything, one must open one’s hands and give. – Taisen Deshimaru

60. Do not follow the idea of others, but learn to listen to the voice within yourself. – Dōgen Zenji

61. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. – Lao Tzu

62. Smile, breathe and go slowly. – Thích Nhất Hạnh

63. When you do something, you should burn yourself up completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself. – Shunryu Suzuki

64. And when they played they really played. And when they worked they really worked. – Dr. Seuss

65. One must be deeply aware of the impermanence of the world. – Dogen

66. The practice of Zen is forgetting the self in the act of uniting with something. – Koun Yamada

67. All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no mind, from inner stillness. – Eckhart Tolle

68. Have good trust in yourself; not in the One that you think you should be, but in the One that you are. – Maezumi Roshi

69. Have the fearless attitude of a hero and the loving heart of a child. – Soyen Shaku

70. Life isn’t as serious as the mind makes it out to be. – Eckhart Tolle

71. Let go over a cliff, die completely, and then come back to life, after that you cannot be deceived. – Zen Proverb

72. 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. – Rachel Danson

73. Only when you can be extremely pliable and soft can you be extremely hard and strong. –  Zen Proverb

74. Upon retiring, sleep as if you had entered your last sleep. Upon awakening, leave your bed behind you instantly as if you had cast away a pair of old shoes. – Soyen Shaku

75. 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. – Alan Watts

76. If you are unable to find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it? – Dogen

77. Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone. – Alan Watts

78. 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. – Buddha

79. To accept some idea of truth without experiencing it is like a painting of a cake on paper which you cannot eat. – Suzuki Roshi

80. It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. – Martin Luther King, Jr.

81. To follow the path, look to the master, follow the master, walk with the master, see through the master, become the master. – Zen Proverb

82. The resistance to the unpleasant situation is the root of suffering. – Ram Dass

83. For things to reveal themselves to us, we need to be ready to abandon our views about them. – Thích Nhat Hanh

84. Watch what you say, and whatever you say, practice it. – Soyen Shaku

85. Zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration on our usual everyday routine. – Shunryu Suzuki

86. Nothing ever exists entirely alone. Everything is in relation to everything else. – Buddha

87. Think with your whole body. – Taisen Deshimaru

88. You should study not only that you become a mother when your child is born, but also that you become a child. – Dogen Zenji

89. The one who is good at shooting does not hit the center of the target.

90. When an ordinary man attains knowledge, he is a sage; when a sage attains understanding, he is an ordinary man.

91. What is the sound of one hand clapping?

92. 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 sake. Meditation is Drinking it. – Taisen Deshimaru

93. 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

94. To study Buddhism is to study ourselves. To study ourselves is to forget ourselves. – Dogen Zenji

95. Those who see worldly life as an obstacle to Dharma see no Dharma in everyday actions. They have not yet discovered that there are no everyday actions outside of Dharma. – Dogen Zenji

96. I come to realize that mind is no other than mountains and rivers and the great wide earth, the sun and the moon and stars. – Dogen Zenji

97. Life and death are of supreme importance. Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost. Each of us should strive to awaken. Awaken. Take heed, do not squander your life. – Dogen Zenji

98. In a mind clear as still water, even the waves, breaking, are reflecting its light. – Dogen Zenji

99. You will not be punished for your anger; you will be punished by your anger. – Buddha

100. If you understand, things are just as they are; If you do not understand, things are just as they are.

101. A flower falls, even though we love it; and a weed grows, even though we do not love it. – Dogen Zenji

102. One who conquers himself is greater than another who conquers a thousand times a thousand on the battlefield. – Buddha

103. Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. – Buddha

104. I actually shoot. I enjoy target practice. I find it really zen. You focus on nothing but the target. You have to control your breathing. It’s all part of my years in the military, where I was taught to become a marksman but also to respect my weapon. – Tammy Duckworth

105. You prep, you prep, you prep. And on the day that you film, you let all of that go. I try to achieve emptiness as much as possible, ‘the Zen thing’, to let the deal come out of that nothing. – Jeff Bridges

106. When you’ve done the technical part, you’re then into the joy, the zen, into being. Technology no longer exists for you. You’re then into the mystery of the thing you’re doing. – William Shatner

107. One thing I like about Zen, it doesn’t believe in achievement. – Agnes Martin

108. I read a lot of Zen books. And I grew up surfing, so that has always been my escape. – Liam Hemsworth

109. My feeling or philosophy is closer to Taoism and Zen Buddhism, ’cause it’s the most practical. – Harry Dean Stanton

110. In the dressing room, we’ve just made it really Zen: low lighting, lots of candles, and fresh, healthy food. – Flume

111. We must recognize our own behavioral errors. To be blunt, you are not likely to become a cognitive Zen master anytime soon. But a little enlightenment could keep you from making some common investing errors. – Barry Ritholtz

112. In fact, in many ways my mother was quite hippy-dippy, serving macrobiotic food and reading ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.’ – Kristin Scott Thomas

113. I think that that’s why artists make art, it is difficult to put into words unless you are a poet. What it takes is being open to the flow of universal creativity. The Zen artists knew this. – Alex Grey

114. Having plants and flowers in my space makes me feel very calm and Zen. For me, it’s important to meditate every morning to be very clear in the head, and nature really helps me do the same thing. – Nicola Formichetti

115. 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. – Stacey D’Erasmo

116. I consider writing practice a true Zen practice because it all comes back at you. You can’t fool anyone because it’s on the page. – Natalie Goldberg

117. Golf is a spiritual game. It’s like Zen. You have to let your mind take over. – Amy Alcott

118. I think about death a lot, I really do, because I can’t believe I won’t exist. It’s the ego, isn’t it? I feel that I should retreat into a better form of Zen Buddhism than this kind of ego-dominated thing. But I don’t know, I mean, I want to come back as a tree but I suspect that it’s just not going to happen, is it?  – Kate Atkinson

119. I think any spiritual experience that’s worthwhile is not about ego and it will humble you in some way. And also, a Zen monk once said to me, ‘If you’re not laughing, then you’re not getting it.’ – David O. Russell

120. 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. – Matthew Sweet

121. I’ve been studying the cultures of Asia for many years, and I’m very attracted to the culture of Japan, in particular to the impact Zen has had on the Japanese mind and spirit. – Mahavishnu John McLaughlin

122. Zen Buddhism is a discipline where belief isn’t necessary. – David Sylvian

123. I feel I’m pretty zen and laid back. I don’t have a lot of rage in my real life. – Stark Sands

124. The truth knocks on the door and you say, ‘Go away, I’m looking for the truth,’ and so it goes away. Puzzling. – Robert M. Pirsig

125. It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable. – Seneca

126. Not being tense but ready. Not thinking but not dreaming. Not being set but flexible. Liberation from the uneasy sense of confinement. It is being wholly and quietly alive, aware and alert, ready for whatever may come. – Bruce Lee

127. Flow with whatever may happen, and let your mind be free: Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate. – Zhuangzi

128. Letting go is the lesson. Letting go is always the lesson. Have you ever noticed how much of our agony is all tied up with craving and loss? – Susan Gordon Lydon

129. Many have died; you also will die. The drum of death is being beaten. The world has fallen in love with a dream. Only sayings of the wise will remain. – Kabir

130. Like vanishing dew, a passing apparition or the sudden flash of lightning, already gone, thus should one regard one’s self. – Ikkyu

131. When you catch yourself slipping into a pool of negativity, notice how it derives from nothing other than resistance to the current situation. – Donna Quesada

132. For your past, for your flaws, and ultimately for your stress; I judge no one whom I’ve met along the way because in a sense we were all wounded in our own ways. – Forrest Curran

133. It is easy to believe we are each waves and forget we are also the ocean. – Jon J. Muth

134. The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings. – Masanobu Fukuoka

135. The more you know, the less you need. – Yvon Chouinard

136. When the mind is exhausted of images, it invents its own. – Gary Snyder

137. ‘Don’t think of what you have to do, don’t consider how to carry it out!’ he exclaimed. The shot will only go smoothly when it takes the archer himself by surprise. – Eugen Herrigel

138. We’re lost where the mind can’t find us utterly lost. – Ikkyu

139. Consider your own place in the universal oneness of which we are all a part, from which we all arise, and to which we all return. – David Fontana

140. He knows not where he’s going, for the ocean will decide. It’s not the destination; it’s the glory of the ride. – Edward Monkton

141. Doffing the ego’s safe glory, he finds his naked reality. – Dag Hammarskjöld

142. Don’t wait for the man standing in the snow to cut off his arm. Help him now. – Ikkyu

143. Humility before the flower at the timber line is the gate which gives access to the path up the open fell. – Dag Hammarskjöld

144. You cannot travel the path until you have become the path itself. – Buddha

145. However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act on upon them? – Buddha

146. Doubt everything. Find your own light. – Buddha

147. Just as a snake sheds its skin, we must shed our past over and over again. – Buddha

148. Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. – Buddha

149. In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true. – Buddha

150. It isn’t that we’re alone or not alone. Whose voice do you want? Mine? Yours? – Ikkyu

151. The object of your desire is not an object. – Jack Gardner

152. Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one. – Bruce Lee

153. To live a pure unselfish life, one must count nothing as one’s own in the midst of abundance. – Buddha

154. Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible. – Dalai Lama

Happiness is here, and now. – Thích Nhất Hạnh

156. Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely. – Buddha

157. When you think everything is someone else fault, you will suffer a lot. When you realize that everything springs only from yourself, you will learn both peace and joy. – Dalai Lama

158. Let go, or be dragged. – Zen Proverb

159. Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished. – Lao Tzu

160. The most important point is to accept yourself and stand on your two feet. – Shunryu Suzuki

161. Have a mind that is open to everything and attached to nothing. – Tilopa

162. When walking, walk. When eating, eat. – Zen Proverb

163. 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. – Dōgen Zenji

164. Act without expectation. – Lao Tzu

165. Life begins where fear ends. – Osho

166. Our sorrows and wounds are healed only when we touch them with compassion. – Buddha

167. Love is the absence of judgment. – Dalai Lama

168. Flow with whatever may happen, and let your mind be free: Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate. – Chuang-Tzu

169. If we do not know how to take care of ourselves and to love ourselves, we cannot take care of the people we love. Loving oneself is the foundation for loving another person. – Thích Nhất Hạnh