Daily Zen Quote - February 29, 2016

“Learning how to think' really means learning how to exercise some control over how & what you think. It means being conscious & aware enough to choose what you pay attention to & to choose how you construct meaning from experience.”
~ David Foster Wallace from This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life

Daily Zen Quote - February 28, 2016

“The most dangerous thing about an academic education is that it enables my tendency to over-intellectualize stuff, to get lost in abstract thinking instead of simply paying attention to what’s going on in front of me.”
~ David Foster Wallace from This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life

Daily Zen Quote - February 27, 2016

“The idea of Zen is to catch life as it flows. There is nothing extraordinary or mysterious about Zen. I raise my hand ; I take a book from the other side of the desk ; I hear the boys playing ball outside my window; I see the clouds blown away beyond the neighbouring wood: — in all these I am practising Zen, I am living Zen. No wordy discussions is necessary, nor any explanation. I do not know why — and there is no need of explaining, but when the sun rises the whole world dances with joy and everybody’s heart is filled with bliss. If Zen is at all conceivable, it must be taken hold of here.”
~ D.T. Suzuki from An Introduction to Zen Buddhism

Daily Zen Quote - February 26, 2016

“We grow up to believe that we are supposed to somehow "become" who we are meant to be through the trial-by-fire that is life here on planet Earth.

Reality is...there's no "becoming".

It's actually all an "un-becoming", only to reunite with who you were born to be in the first place before society told you otherwise.”
~ Jennifer Sodini

Daily Zen Quote - February 25, 2016

“If the eye never sleeps,
all dreams will naturally cease.
If the mind makes no discriminations,
the ten thousand things are as they are,
of single essence.
To understand the mystery of this One essence
is to be released from all entanglements.
When all things are seen equally
the timeless Self-essence is reached.
No comparisons or analogies are possible
in this causeless, relation-less state.

Consider movement stationary
and the stationary in motion,
both movement and rest disappear.
When such dualities cease to exist
Oneness itself cannot exist.
To this ultimate finality
no law or description applies.”
~ Sengcan

Daily Zen Quote - February 24, 2016

“Travel is such a wonderful experience! Especially when you forget you are traveling. Then you will enjoy whatever you see and do. Those who look into themselves when they travel will not think about what they see. In fact, there is no distinction between the viewer and the seen. You experience everything with the totality of yourself, so that every blade of grass, every mountain, every lake is alive and is a part of you. When there is no division between you and what is other, this is the ultimate experience of traveling.”
~ Liezi from Lieh-tzu: A Taoist Guide to Practical Living

Daily Zen Quote - February 23, 2016

“Letting go takes a lot of courage sometimes. But once you let go, happiness comes very quickly. You won't have to go around search for it.”
~ Thích Nhất Hạnh

Daily Zen Quote - February 22, 2016

“Zen is the period of time during which a person has true clarity of vision.”
~ Dr. Ernst Arnold

Daily Zen Quote - February 21, 2016

“Before we were born we had no feeling; we were one with the universe. This is called "mind-only," or "essence of mind," or "big mind," After we are separated by birth from this oneness, as the water falling from the waterfall is separated by the wind and rocks, then we have feeling. You have difficulty because you have feeling. You attach to the feeling you have without knowing just how this kind of feeling is created. When you do not realize that you are one with the river, or one with the universe, you have fear. Whether it is separated into drops or not, water is water. Our life and death are the same thing. When we realize this fact we have no fear of death anymore, and we have no actual difficulty in our life.”
~ Shunryu Suzuki

Daily Zen Quote - February 20, 2016

“Before we were born we had no feeling; we were one with the universe. This is called "mind-only," or "essence of mind," or "big mind," After we are separated by birth from this oneness, as the water falling from the waterfall is separated by the wind and rocks, then we have feeling. You have difficulty because you have feeling. You attach to the feeling you have without knowing just how this kind of feeling is created. When you do not realize that you are one with the river, or one with the universe, you have fear. Whether it is separated into drops or not, water is water. Our life and death are the same thing. When we realize this fact we have no fear of death anymore, and we have no actual difficulty in our life.”
~ Shunryu Suzuki

Daily Zen Quote - February 19, 2016

“To think, or not to think...This is the true question.”
~ Bert McCoy

Daily Zen Quote - February 18, 2016

“Stay in the center, and you will be ready to move in any direction.”
 ~ Alan W. Watts

Daily Zen Quote - February 17, 2016

“When no discriminating thoughts arise,
the old mind ceases to exist.
When thought objects vanish,
the thinking-subject vanishes,
as when the mind vanishes, objects vanish.
Things are objects because of the subject;
the mind is such because of things.
Understand the relativity of these two
and the basic reality: the unity of emptiness.
In this Emptiness the two are indistinguishable
and each contains in itself the whole world.
If you do not discriminate between coarse and fine
you will not be tempted to prejudice and opinion.”
~ Sengcan

Daily Zen Quote - February 16, 2016

“Two monks were once traveling together down a wet and muddy road. The rain was torrential, making it almost impossible to walk along the path. As the two men were trudging along, a beautiful girl dressed in silk appeared. She was unable to cross the path and looked distressed.

“Let me help you”, said the older monk. He picked her up and carried her over the mud. His younger male companion did not utter a word that night until they reached their lodging temple. Then after hours of restrained conversation, the younger monk exclaimed: “We monks do not touch females; it is too tempting for us and can create a bad outcome”. The older monk looked into the younger monks eyes and said, “I left the girl on the road. Are you still carrying her?”

This ancient Zen story illustrates beautifully how so many of us are trapped in the habit of constantly “re-living” the past in our minds, thus dishonoring the present moment. The young monk wasted hours distressing himself with judgment, speculation, anxiety, resentment and ultimately self-perpetuated unhappiness as a direct result of not being mindful.”
~ Christopher Dines from Mindfulness Meditation: Bringing Mindfulness into Everyday Life

Daily Zen Quote - February 15, 2016

“Be aware of yourself without thinking or looking in the mirror”
~ Bert McCoy

Daily Zen Quote - February 14, 2016

“There is nowhere to arrive except the present moment.”
~ Thích Nhất Hạnh from How to Sit

Daily Zen Quote - February 13, 2016

“See for yourself whether letting go when a part of you really wants to hold on doesn't bring a deeper satisfaction than clinging.”
~ Jon Kabat-Zinn from Wherever You Go, There You Are - Mindfulness Meditation In Everyday Life

Daily Zen Quote - February 12, 2016

“The ignorant eschew phenomena but not thought; the wise eschew thought but not phenomena.”
~ Huang Po

Daily Zen Quote - February 11, 2016

“Shall you live authentically who you are or will you spend your allotted living the life of someone you imagine your self to be?”
~ Earl R. Smith II

Daily Zen Quote - February 10, 2016

“Zen is a journey of exploration and a way of living that, in and of itself, does not belong to any one religion or tradition. It is about experiencing life in the here and now and about removing the dualistic distinctions between "I" and "you" between "subject" and "objective", between our spiritual and our ordinary, everyday activities.”
~ Chris Prentiss from Zen and the Art of Happiness

Daily Zen Quote - February 9, 2016

“Although you may have never sat down and defined what your philosophy is, it is fully operative and working in your life at all times. It deals with what you believe about the world in which you live, about its people and events, about how you affect them.”
~ Chris Prentiss from Zen and the Art of Happiness

Daily Zen Quote - February 8, 2016

“The answers are never "out there." All the answers are "in there," inside you, waiting to be discovered.”
~ Chris Prentiss from Zen and the Art of Happiness

Daily Zen Quote - February 7, 2016

“They asked a wise man: Why don’t we ever hear you backbiting and slandering?
He said: I’m still not happy with myself to start with others.”
~ Ahmad Musa Jibril

Daily Zen Quote - February 6, 2016

“All other creatures look down toward the earth, but man was given a face so that might turn his eyes toward the stars and his gaze upon the sky.”
~ Ovid

Daily Zen Quote - February 5, 2016

“The glass is neither half empty, nor half full. The glass is just a glass and it's content can perpetually change with your perception.”
~ Jennifer Sodini

Daily Zen Quote - February 4, 2016

“The son needs the father to have access to his source, and the father needs the son to have access to the future and the infinite.”
~ Thích Nhất Hạnh from No Death, No Fear

Daily Zen Quote - February 3, 2016

“Life is a river," a wise friend told me. "It's flowing. You're never at the same place twice.”
~ Kamal Ravikant from Live Your Truth

Daily Zen Quote - February 2, 2016

“I discovered that those who seldom dwell on their emotions know better than anyone else just what an emotion is.”
~ John Cage

Daily Zen Quote - February 1, 2016

“We should live every day like people who have just been rescued from the moon.”
~ Thích Nhất Hạnh from No Death, No Fear