Quotes4study

>Zen is not a particular state but the normal state: silent, peaceful, unagitated. In Zazen neither intention, analysis, specific effort nor imagination take place. It's enough just to be without hypocrisy, dogmatism, arrogance — embracing all opposites.

Taisen Deshimaru

Charlotte Joko Beck, Zen teacher and author, teaches that the “secret” of spiritual life is the capacity to “… return to that which we have spent a lifetime hiding from, to rest in the bodily experience of the present moment—even if it is a feeling of being humiliated, of failing, of abandonment, of unfairness.” Through the sacred art of pausing, we develop the capacity to stop hiding, to stop running away from our experience. We begin to trust in our natural intelligence, in our naturally wise heart, in our capacity to open to whatever arises. Like awakening from a dream, in the moment of pausing our trance recedes and Radical Acceptance becomes possible.

Tara Brach

>Zen is an effort to become alert and awake.

Osho or Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

Christ said, "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you." And the Indians say that and the Zen people say that. We're all God. I'm not a god or the God, but we're all God and we're all potentially divine — and potentially evil. We all have everything within us and the Kingdom of Heaven is nigh and within us, and if you look hard enough you'll see it.

John Lennon

>Zen is the only religion in the world that teaches sudden enlightenment. It says that enlightenment takes no time, it can happen in a single, split second.

Osho or Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

The Zen disciple sits for long hours silent and motionless, with his eyes closed. Presently he enters a state of impassivity, free from all ideas and all thoughts. He departs from the self and enters the realm of nothingness. This is not the nothingness or the emptiness of the West. It is rather the reverse, a universe of the spirit in which everything communicates freely with everything, transcending bounds, limitless. … The disciple must, however, always be lord of his own thoughts, and must attain enlightenment through his own efforts. And the emphasis is less upon reason and argument than upon intuition, immediate feeling. Enlightenment comes not from teaching but through the eye awakened inwardly. Truth is in "the discarding of words", it lies "outside words".

Yasunari Kawabata

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 (date of death

One of the basic tenets of Zen Buddhism is that there is no way to characterize what Zen is. No matter what verbal space you try to enclose Zen in, it resists, and spills over...

Douglas Hofstadter in Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid

    Well, he thought, since neither Aristotelian Logic nor the disciplines

of Science seemed to offer much hope, it's time to go beyond them...

    Drawing a few deep even breaths, he entered a mental state practiced

only by Masters of the Universal Way of Zen.  In it his mind floated freely,

able to rummage at will among the bits and pieces of data he had absorbed,

undistracted by any outside disturbances.  Logical structures no longer

inhibited him. Pre-conceptions, prejudices, ordinary human standards vanished.

All things, those previously trivial as well as those once thought important,

became absolutely equal by acquiring an absolute value, revealing relationships

not evident to ordinary vision.  Like beads strung on a string of their own

meaning, each thing pointed to its own common ground of existence, shared by

all.  Finally, each began to melt into each, staying itself while becoming

all others.  And Mind no longer contemplated Problem, but became Problem,

destroying Subject-Object by becoming them.

    Time passed, unheeded.

    Eventually, there was a tentative stirring, then a decisive one, and

Nakamura arose, a smile on his face and the light of laughter in his eyes.

        -- Wayfarer

Fortune Cookie

What I mean (and everybody else means) by the word QUALITY cannot be

broken down into subjects and predicates.  This is not because Quality

is so mysterious but because Quality is so simple, immediate, and direct.

        -- R. Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"

Fortune Cookie

    An older student came to Otis and said, "I have been to see a

great number of teachers and I have given up a great number of pleasures.

I have fasted, been celibate and stayed awake nights seeking enlightenment.

I have given up everything I was asked to give up and I have suffered, but

I have not been enlightened.  What should I do?"

    Otis replied, "Give up suffering."

        -- Camden Benares, "Zen Without Zen Masters"

Fortune Cookie

The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of a

digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top

of a mountain or in the petals of a flower.  To think otherwise is to demean

the Buddha -- which is to demean oneself.

        -- Robert Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"

Fortune Cookie

When you meet a master swordsman,

show him your sword.

When you meet a man who is not a poet,

do not show him your poem.

        -- Rinzai, ninth century Zen master

Fortune Cookie

Do students of Zen Buddhism do Om-work?

Fortune Cookie

All of us should treasure his Oriental wisdom and his preaching of a

>Zen-like detachment, as exemplified by his constant reminder to clerks,

tellers, or others who grew excited by his presence in their banks:

"Just lie down on the floor and keep calm."

        -- Robert Wilson, "John Dillinger Died for You"

Fortune Cookie

When a shepherd goes to kill a wolf, and takes his dog along to see

the sport, he should take care to avoid mistakes.  The dog has certain

relationships to the wolf the shepherd may have forgotten.

        -- Robert Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"

Fortune Cookie

Q:    How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A:    None.  The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master stays out

    of the way.

Fortune Cookie

    Before he became a hermit, Zarathud was a young Priest, and

    took great delight in making fools of his opponents in front of

his followers.

    One day Zarathud took his students to a pleasant pasture and

there he confronted The Sacred Chao while She was contentedly grazing.

    "Tell me, you dumb beast," demanded the Priest in his

commanding voice, "why don't you do something worthwhile?  What is your

Purpose in Life, anyway?"

    Munching the tasty grass, The Sacred Chao replied "MU".  (The

Chinese ideogram for NO-THING.)

    Upon hearing this, absolutely nobody was enlightened.

    Primarily because nobody understood Chinese.

        -- Camden Benares, "Zen Without Zen Masters"

Fortune Cookie

A student asked the master for help... does this program run from the

Workbench? The master grabbed the mouse and pointed to an icon. "What is

this?" he asked. The student replied "That's the mouse". The master pressed

control-Amiga-Amiga and hit the student on the head with the Amiga ROM Kernel

Manual.

        -- Amiga Zen Master Peter da Silva

Fortune Cookie

How many Zen Buddhist does it take to change a light bulb?

Two.  One to change it and one not to change it.

Fortune Cookie

    Approaching the gates of the monastery, Hakuin found Ken the Zen</p>

preaching to a group of disciples.

    "Words..." Ken orated, "they are but an illusory veil obfuscating

the absolute reality of --"

    "Ken!" Hakuin interrupted. "Your fly is down!"

    Whereupon the Clear Light of Illumination exploded upon Ken, and he

vaporized.

    On the way to town, Hakuin was greeted by an itinerant monk imbued

with the spirit of the morning.

    "Ah," the monk sighed, a beatific smile wrinkling across his cheeks,

"Thou art That..."

    "Ah," Hakuin replied, pointing excitedly, "And Thou art Fat!"

    Whereupon the Clear Light of Illumination exploded upon the monk,

and he vaporized.

    Next, the Governor sought the advice of Hakuin, crying: "As our

enemies bear down upon us, how shall I, with such heartless and callow

soldiers as I am heir to, hope to withstand the impending onslaught?"

    "US?" snapped Hakuin.

    Whereupon the Clear Light of Illumination exploded upon the

Governor, and he vaporized.

    Then, a redneck went up to Hakuin and vaporized the old Master with

his shotgun.  "Ha! Beat ya' to the punchline, ya' scrawny li'l geek!"

Fortune Cookie

Stuckness shouldn't be avoided.  It's the psychic predecessor of all

real understanding.  An egoless acceptance of stuckness is a key to an

understanding of all Quality, in mechanical work as in other endeavors.

        -- R. Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"

Fortune Cookie

I did cancel one performance in Holland where they thought my music was so easy

that they didn't rehearse at all.  And so the first time when I found that out,

I rehearsed the orchestra myself in front of the audience of 3,000 people and

the next day I rehearsed through the second movement -- this was the piece

_Cheap Imitation_ -- and they then were ashamed.  The Dutch people were ashamed

and they invited me to come to the Holland festival and they promised to

rehearse.  And when I got to Amsterdam they had changed the orchestra, and

again, they hadn't rehearsed.  So they were no more prepared the second time

than they had been the first.  I gave them a lecture and told them to cancel

the performance; they then said over the radio that i had insisted on their

cancelling the performance because they were "insufficiently Zen."

Can you believe it?

        -- composer John Cage, "Electronic Musician" magazine, March 88, pg. 89

Fortune Cookie

~Night.~--Wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars.--_Mrs. Barbauld._

Maturin M. Ballou     Pearls of Thought

Know thus far forth: By accident most strange, bountiful Fortune — Now my dear lady — hath mine enemies Brought to this shore; and by my prescience I find my zenith doth depend upon A most auspicious star, whose influence If now I court not, but omit, my fortunes Will ever after droop.

William Shakespeare ~ in ~ The Tempest

Small is it that thou canst trample the earth with its injuries under thy foot, as old Greek Zeno trained thee: thou canst love the earth while it injures thee, and even because it injures thee; for this a Greater than Zeno was needed, and he too was sent.

_Carlyle._

But Chrysippus, Posidonius, Zeno, and Boethus say, that all things are produced by fate. And fate is a connected cause of existing things, or the reason according to which the world is regulated.

I."     _Zeno. lxxiv._

I cuori fanciulli non vestone a bruno=--A child's heart wears no weeds.

_B. Zendrini._

From morn To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,-- A summer's day; and with the setting sun Dropp'd from the Zenith like a falling star.

JOHN MILTON. 1608-1674.     _Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 742._

La poesia non muore=--Poetry does not die.

_B. Zendrini._

Man, if he compare himself with all he can see, is at the zenith of his power; but if he compare himself with all he can conceive, he is at the nadir of his weakness.

_Colton._

"Ve must vight to the last tr-r-op of our plood!" said the colonel, thumping the table; "and ve must tie for our Emperor, and zen all vill pe vell. And ve must discuss it as little as po-o-ossible"... he dwelt particularly on the word possible... "as po-o-ossible," he ended, again turning to the count. "Zat is how ve old hussars look at it, and zere's an end of it! And how do you, a young man and a young hussar, how do you judge of it?" he added, addressing Nicholas, who when he heard that the war was being discussed had turned from his partner with eyes and ears intent on the colonel.

Leo Tolstoy     War and Peace

>Zeno first started that doctrine that knavery is the best defence against a knave.

PLUTARCH. 46(?)-120(?) A. D.     _Of Bashfulness._

This dead of midnight is the noon of thought, And Wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars.

MRS. BARBAULD. 1743-1825.     _A Summer's Evening Meditation._

"Þet þis boc is y-write mid engliss of Kent; Þis boc is y-mad uor lewede men, Vor uader, and uor moder, and uor oþer ken, Ham uor to ber[gh]e uram alle manyere zen, Þet ine hare inwytte ne bleue no uoul wen." Entry: 1140

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 9, Slice 6 "English Language" to "Epsom Salts"     1910-1911

A tradition which was widely diffused, and which is not in itself improbable, was that he afterwards preached the gospel and presided over the church at Alexandria (the earliest extant testimony is that of Eusebius, _H. E._ ii. 16, 1; ii. 24; for the fully-developed legend of later times see Symeon Metaphrastes, _Vita S. Marci_, and Eutychius _Origines ecclesiae Alexandrinae_). There was another, though perhaps not incompatible, tradition that he preached the gospel and presided over the church at Aquileia in North Italy. The earliest testimony in favour of this tradition is the vague statement of Gregory of Nazianzus that Mark preached in Italy, but its existence in the 7th century is shown by the fact that in A.D. 629 Heraclius sent the patriarchal chair from Alexandria to Grado, to which city the patriarchate of Aquileia had been then transferred (_Chron. patriarch. Gradens._, in Ughelli, _Italia sacra_, tom. v. p. 1086; for other references to the general tradition see De Rubeis, _Monum. eccles. aquileien._, c. 1; _Acta sanctorum_, ad April, xxv.). It was through this tradition that Mark became connected with Venice, whither the patriarchate was further transferred from Grado; an early Venetian legend, which is represented in the Cappella Zen in the basilica of St Mark, antedates this connexion by picturing the evangelist as having been stranded on the Rialto, while it was still an uninhabited island, and as having had the future greatness of the city revealed to him (Danduli, _Chron._ iv. 1, ap. Muratori, _Rer. ital. script._ xii. 14). Entry: A

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 17, Slice 6 "Map" to "Mars"     1910-1911

Anterior by a few years to that introduction of the Shinshu was the Zen sect, which has three main divisions, the Rinzai (1168), the Soto (1223) and the Obaku (1650). This is essentially a contemplative sect. Truth is reached by pure contemplation, and knowledge can be transmitted from heart to heart without the use of words. In that simple form the doctrine was accepted by the Rinzai believers. But the founders of the Soto branch--Shoyo taishi and Butsuji zenshi--added scholarship and research to contemplation, and taught that the "highest wisdom and the most perfect enlightenment are attained when all the elements of phenomenal existence are recognized as empty, vain and unreal." This creed played an important part in the development of Bushido, and its priests have always been distinguished for erudition and indifference to worldly possessions. Entry: A

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 15, Slice 2 "Jacobites" to "Japan" (part)     1910-1911

Except for the number of buildings composing it, the palace had little to distinguish it from a nobleman's mansion. The latter consisted of a principal hall, where the master of the house lived, ate and slept, and of three suites of chambers, disposed on the north, the east and the west of the principal hall. In the northern suite the lady of the house dwelt, the eastern and western suites being allotted to other members of the family. Corridors joined the principal hall to the subordinate edifices, for as yet the idea had not been conceived of having more than one chamber under the same roof. The principal hall was usually 42 ft. square. Its centre was occupied by a "parent chamber," 30 ft. square, around which ran an ambulatory and a veranda, each 6 ft. wide. The parent chamber and the ambulatory were ceiled, sometimes with interlacing strips of bark or broad laths, so as to produce a plaited effect; sometimes with plain boards. The veranda had no ceiling. Sliding doors, a characteristic feature of modern Japanese houses, had not yet come into use, and no means were provided for closing the veranda, but the ambulatory was surrounded by a wall of latticed timber or plain boards, the lower half of which could be removed altogether, whereas the upper half, suspended from hooks, could be swung upward and outward. Privacy was obtained by blinds of split bamboo, and the parent chamber was separated from the ambulatory by similar bamboo blinds with silk cords for raising or lowering them, or by curtains. The thick rectangular mats of uniform size which, fitting together so as to present a level unbroken surface, cover the floor of all modern Japanese houses, were not yet in use: floors were boarded, having only a limited space matted. This form of mansion underwent little modification until the 12th century, when the introduction of the Zen sect of Buddhism with its contemplative practice called for greater privacy. Interiors were then divided into smaller rooms by means of sliding doors covered with thin rice-paper, which permitted the passage of light while obstructing vision; the hanging lattices were replaced by wooden doors which could be slid along a groove so as to be removable in the daytime, and an alcove was added in the principal chamber for a sacred picture or Buddhist image to serve as an object of contemplation for a devotee while practising the rite of abstraction. Thus the main features of the Japanese dwelling-house were evolved, and little change took place subsequently, except that the brush of the painter was freely used for decorating partitions, and in aristocratic mansions unlimited care was exercised in the choice of rare woods. Entry: FIG

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 15, Slice 2 "Jacobites" to "Japan" (part)     1910-1911

At any given moment, an arrow must be either where it is or where it is

not.  But obviously it cannot be where it is not.  And if it is where

it is, that is equivalent to saying that it is at rest.

        -- Zeno's paradox of the moving (still?) arrow

Fortune Cookie

The religious paintings of Li Lung-mien, the grandest of Sung masters, if less forcible than those of T'ang, were unsurpassed in harmonious rhythm of design and colour. But the most characteristic painting of this period is in landscape and nature-subjects. With a passion unmatched in Europe till Wordsworth's day, the Sung artists portrayed their delight in mountains, mists, plunging torrents, the flight of the wild geese from the reed-beds, the moonlit reveries of sages in forest solitudes, the fisherman in his boat on lake or stream. To them also, steeped in the Zen philosophy of contemplation, a flowering branch was no mere subject for a decorative study, but a symbol of the infinite life of nature. A mere hint to the spectator's imagination is often all that they rely on; proof of the singular fulness and reality of the culture of the time. The art of suggestion has never been carried farther. Such traditional subjects as "Curfew from a Distant Temple" and "The Moon over Raging Waves" indicate the poetic atmosphere of this art. Ma Yuan, Hsia Kuei and the emperor Hwei-tsung are among the greatest landscape artists of this period. They belong to the South Sung school, which loved to paint the gorges and towering rock-pinnacles of the Yangtsze. The sterner, less romantic scenery of the Hwang-Ho inspired the Northern school, of which Kuo Hsi and Li Ch'eng were famous among many others. Muh Ki was one of the greatest masters of the ink sketch; Chao Tan Lin was famed for his tigers; Li Ti for his flowers as for his landscapes; Mao I for still-life: to name a few among a host. Entry: T

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton"     1910-1911

Prince Andrew arrived in Petersburg in August, 1809. It was the time when the youthful Speranski was at the zenith of his fame and his reforms were being pushed forward with the greatest energy. That same August the Emperor was thrown from his caleche, injured his leg, and remained three weeks at Peterhof, receiving Speranski every day and no one else. At that time the two famous decrees were being prepared that so agitated society--abolishing court ranks and introducing examinations to qualify for the grades of Collegiate Assessor and State Councilor-- and not merely these but a whole state constitution, intended to change the existing order of government in Russia: legal, administrative, and financial, from the Council of State down to the district tribunals. Now those vague liberal dreams with which the Emperor Alexander had ascended the throne, and which he had tried to put into effect with the aid of his associates, Czartoryski, Novosiltsev, Kochubey, and Strogonov--whom he himself in jest had called his Comite de salut public--were taking shape and being realized.

Leo Tolstoy     War and Peace

The horizon was perfectly black. This was not alone the obscurity of night; it was caused by very low-hanging clouds which seemed to rest upon the hill itself, and which were mounting and filling the whole sky. Meanwhile, as the moon was about to rise, and as there was still floating in the zenith a remnant of the brightness of twilight, these clouds formed at the summit of the sky a sort of whitish arch, whence a gleam of light fell upon the earth.

Victor Hugo     Les Miserables

The miasmas, darkness, horror lay behind him. The pure, healthful, living, joyous air that was easy to breathe inundated him. Everywhere around him reigned silence, but that charming silence when the sun has set in an unclouded azure sky. Twilight had descended; night was drawing on, the great deliverer, the friend of all those who need a mantle of darkness that they may escape from an anguish. The sky presented itself in all directions like an enormous calm. The river flowed to his feet with the sound of a kiss. The aerial dialogue of the nests bidding each other good night in the elms of the Champs-Elysees was audible. A few stars, daintily piercing the pale blue of the zenith, and visible to revery alone, formed imperceptible little splendors amid the immensity. Evening was unfolding over the head of Jean Valjean all the sweetness of the infinite.

Victor Hugo     Les Miserables

But the elastic heart of youth cannot be compressed into one constrained shape long at a time. Tom presently began to drift insensibly back into the concerns of this life again. What if he turned his back, now, and disappeared mysteriously? What if he went away--ever so far away, into unknown countries beyond the seas--and never came back any more! How would she feel then! The idea of being a clown recurred to him now, only to fill him with disgust. For frivolity and jokes and spotted tights were an offense, when they intruded themselves upon a spirit that was exalted into the vague august realm of the romantic. No, he would be a soldier, and return after long years, all war-worn and illustrious. No--better still, he would join the Indians, and hunt buffaloes and go on the warpath in the mountain ranges and the trackless great plains of the Far West, and away in the future come back a great chief, bristling with feathers, hideous with paint, and prance into Sunday-school, some drowsy summer morning, with a blood-curdling war-whoop, and sear the eyeballs of all his companions with unappeasable envy. But no, there was something gaudier even than this. He would be a pirate! That was it! _now_ his future lay plain before him, and glowing with unimaginable splendor. How his name would fill the world, and make people shudder! How gloriously he would go plowing the dancing seas, in his long, low, black-hulled racer, the Spirit of the Storm, with his grisly flag flying at the fore! And at the zenith of his fame, how he would suddenly appear at the old village and stalk into church, brown and weather-beaten, in his black velvet doublet and trunks, his great jack-boots, his crimson sash, his belt bristling with horse-pistols, his crime-rusted cutlass at his side, his slouch hat with waving plumes, his black flag unfurled, with the skull and crossbones on it, and hear with swelling ecstasy the whisperings, "It's Tom Sawyer the Pirate!--the Black Avenger of the Spanish Main!"

Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)     The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

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