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Zen Quotes

    “A person who knows all sciences but does not know himself is a poor and ignorant person. He who does not know anything except for his inner spiritual self is an enlightened person.”

    Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 252)

      “The clearest and simplest notions are almost always concealed by sophisticated meditations.”

      Marcus Tullius Cicero, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 213)

        “[Bashō’s] fundamental teaching remained his conviction that in composing a poem, ‘There are two ways: one is entirely natural, in which the poem is born from within itself; the other way is to make it through the mastery of technique.’ His notion of the poem being ‘born within itself’ should under no circumstances be confused with its being self-originating. A fundamental tenet of Buddhism runs exactly to the contrary: nothing is self-originating.”

        Bashō, Narrow Road To The Interior (Page 190)

          “Regard yourself as a cloud, in the flesh, because you see, clouds never make mistakes. Did you ever see a cloud that was misshapen? Did you ever see a badly designed wave? No, they always do the right thing. But, if you will, treat yourself for a while as a cloud or a wave and realize that you can’t make a mistake whatever you do. Because even if you do something that appears totally disastrous, it will all come out in the wash somehow or another. Then through this capacity you will develop a kind of confidence. And through confidence you will be able to trust your own intuition.”

          Alan Watts, Taoism: Way Beyond Thinking

            “Despite his ability to attract students, he seems to have spent much of his time in a state of perpetual despondency, loneliness everywhere crowding in on him. No doubt this state of mind was compounded by chronically poor health, but Bashō was also engaging true sabishi, a spiritual loneliness that served haikai culture in much the same way mu or ‘nothingness’ served Zen.”

            Sam Hamill, Narrow Road To The Interior (Page XXXI)

              "when chaos is all around you
the wisest choice is to create
peace within you

your peace shines outward
and supports the creation
of a new harmony

(meditation)

~ Yung Pueblo, Inward (Page 120)

                “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

                Blaise Pascal, The Daily Laws (Page 106)