quotations about Zen
Zen training is the only venture in my own life that has seriously gone after the ego -- catching it at its own games, and exposing it in all of its good, bad and ugliness.
GINNY WHITELAW
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"3 Common Myths about Zen and Why Zen Helps Leaders", Institute for Zen Leadership
Ginny Jiko Whitelaw is the founder and CEO of the Institute for Zen Leadership. A biophysicist by training, she combines a rich scientific background with senior leadership experience at NASA, and more than 25 years developing leaders at such companies as Novartis, Dell, Merck, T. Rowe Price, Sprint, Mercer, Ascension Health, and JNJ.
There are in Zen no sacred books or dogmatic tenets, nor are there any symbolic formulae through which an access might be gained into the signification of Zen. If I am asked, then, what Zen teaches, I would answer, Zen teaches nothing. Whatever teachings there are in Zen, they come out of one's own mind. We teach ourselves; Zen merely points the way.
DAISETZ TEITARO SUZUKI
An Introduction to Zen Buddhism
D. T. Suzuki (11 November 1870 - 12 July 1966) was a Japanese author of books and essays on Buddhism, Zen and Shin that were instrumental in spreading interest in Far Eastern philosophy to the West. He was also a prolific translator of Chinese, Japanese, and Sanskrit literature. Suzuki was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1963.
Zen is about the process. It does not have an absolute goal, because there is no goal.
PERLE BESSERMAN & MANFRED STEGER
Grassroots Zen
Married university professors and authors Manfred Steger and Perle Besserman studied first under the cultural weight of Japanese Zen, then with the light-footed lay master Robert Aitken. Founders of the Princeton Area Zen Group in NJ, they have been teaching their democratic, grassroots-style of Zen for over twenty-five years.
Zen ... does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.
ALAN WATTS
The Way of Zen
Alan Watts (6 January 1915 - 16 November 1973) was a British writer and speaker known for interpreting and popularizing Buddhism, Taoism, and Hinduism for a Western audience. He introduced the emerging hippie counterculture to The Way of Zen (1957) and explored human consciousness and psychedelics in works such as The New Alchemy (1958) and The Joyous Cosmology (1962).
Zen is a philosophy of action. That means it isn't just a philosophy you read about and think about. It's a philosophy you do.
BRAD WARNER
Hardcore Zen
Brad Warner (born March 5, 1964) is an American Sōtō Zen monk, author, blogger, documentarian and punk rock bass guitarist.
Zen is really extraordinarily simple as long as one doesn't try to be cute about it or beat around the bush! Zen is simply the sensation and the clear understanding ... that there is behind the multiplicity of events and creatures in this universe simply one energy -- and it appears as you, and everything is it. The practice of Zen is to understand that one energy so as to "feel it in your bones."
ALAN WATTS
What Is Zen?
Alan Watts (6 January 1915 - 16 November 1973) was a British writer and speaker known for interpreting and popularizing Buddhism, Taoism, and Hinduism for a Western audience. He introduced the emerging hippie counterculture to The Way of Zen (1957) and explored human consciousness and psychedelics in works such as The New Alchemy (1958) and The Joyous Cosmology (1962).
No one is ever more him/herself than when they really laugh. Their defenses are down. It's very Zen-like, that moment. They are completely open.
GEORGE CARLIN
Last Words
George Carlin (May 12, 1937 - June 22, 2008) was an American stand-up comedian, actor, social critic, and author. Known for his dark comedy and reflections on politics, the English language, psychology, religion, and taboo subjects, he was dubbed "the dean of counterculture comedians".
You don't think your way back to joy; you open to it.
DONNA QUESADA
Buddha in the Classroom: Zen Wisdom to Inspire Teachers
Donna Quesada is an instructor of Eastern spiritual philosophy and Kundalini Yoga. She took her Buddhist precepts with Nyogen Yeo Roshi in 2005, the last successor of Taizan Maezumi Roshi, and the abbot of Hazy Moon Zen Center of Los Angeles.
What we can change is our perceptions, which have the effect of changing everything.
DONNA QUESADA
Buddha in the Classroom: Zen Wisdom to Inspire Teachers
Donna Quesada is an instructor of Eastern spiritual philosophy and Kundalini Yoga. She took her Buddhist precepts with Nyogen Yeo Roshi in 2005, the last successor of Taizan Maezumi Roshi, and the abbot of Hazy Moon Zen Center of Los Angeles.
Zen is not a body of dogma but a way of clarifying and enhancing consciousness.
THOMAS CLEARY
Zen Antics: One Hundred Stories of Enlightenment
Thomas Cleary (born 1949) is an author and translator of more than 80 books related to Buddhist, Taoist, Confucian, and Muslim classics, as well as The Art of War, a treatise on management, military strategy, and statecraft.