187 Quotes About Zen-buddhism

Although Buddhism is unattainable, we vow to attain it.If it is unattainable, how can we attain it? But we should! That is Buddhism.

In short, zazen is seeing this world from the casket, without me.

Zazen is indeed the posture of “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” (Luke 18:13). In our zazen we realize the illusory nature of thoughts, and no matter how powerful they might be, we don’t chase after them, try to get rid of them, or act on them. So zazen is the posture of “We know that our old self was crucified with him” (Romans 6:6) or “I have been crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:19). In the end, zazen is the purest expression of “Be still, and know that I am God!” (Psalms 46:10).

This place of stuck—“I have to” and “I can’t”—feels familiar from my spiritual work. We’re told to simply “let go”—but when we try to do this, we often seem to get more deeply tangled in the willful web of resistance. In spite of injunctions to the contrary, “letting go” doesn’t appear to be something we have conscious control over. Why can’t we just let go into the loving arms of the universe? What is this holding back that seems so essential—so imperative?

Release seems to come only when we allow ourselves to be truly stuck—when we find ourselves all out of tricks and skillful means. As we allow ourselves to surrender to the prosaic and the holy in the particular form of this moment, we open ourselves to the grace of letting things be—the grace that functions effortlessly and is, indeed, the very fabric of our life.

[Man] has transformed himself into a thing.

You can say that before the Absolute all are equal, but there are not two, but one person, who is you.

If you try to examine your life analytically, asking yourself who you are, finally you will realize that there is something you cannot reach. You don’t know what it is, but you feel the presence of something you want to connect with. This is sometimes called the absolute. Buddha and Dogen Zenji say true self. Christians say God.

Render unto meditation the things that are meditation’s, and unto medication the things that are medication’s.