Byron Reid > Byron's Quotes

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#1

“14. Muddy Road

Tanzan and Ekido were once traveling together down a muddy road. A heavy rain was still falling.

Coming around a bend, they met a lovely girl in a silk kimono and sash, unble to cross the intersection.

"Come on, girl," said Tanzan at once. Lifting her in his arms, he carriedher over the mud.

Ekido did not speak again until that night when they reached a lodging temple. Then he could no longer restrain himself. "We monks don't go near females," he told Tanzan, "especially not young and lovely ones. It is dangerous. Why did you do that?"

"I left the girl there," said Tanzan. "Are you still carrying her?”
― Nyogen Senzaki and Paul Reps, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings

tags: judgement, zen

35 likes

#2

“1. A Cup of Tea

Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), recieved a university professor who came to inqure about Zen.
Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full, and then kept on pouring.
The professor watched the overflow until he could no longer restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!"
"Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your up?”
― Nyogen Senzaki and Paul Reps

tags: open-mindedness, zen

21 likes

#3

“The things I carry are my thoughts. That's it. They are the only weight. My thoughts determine whether I am free and light or burdened.”
― Kamal Ravikant, Live Your Truth

tags: burdens, challenges, freedom, meditation-journey, self-improvement, soul-searching, thoughts, zen

64 likes

#4

“Nothing divides one so much as thought.”
― Reginald Horace Blyth

tags: zen

17 likes

#5

“Your judgments about another person say more about your own character than the character of the person you are pointing a finger at.

This is the key and one of the most fundamental insights about the ‘red flags’ that we often dismiss regarding the people in our lives. If someone complains a lot to you about other people, guess what? That is part of their current character. And, as quickly as the tide changes, you can just as easily become the person they target and criticize, point fingers at, and negatively judge. Forever and always, until vibrations are raised, this will be the cycle of the relationship. So, it’s your choice to continue to engage in the cycle with them, or to move on.

There are plenty of people who do not criticize, point fingers, or judge. THIS is the kind of character we want to foster within ourselves. THIS is the character of the kind of people we DO want to develop close relationships with.”
― Alaric Hutchinson, Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life

tags: acceptance, character, choice, consciousness, friendship, growth, inner-peace, inspirational, judging-others, moving-forward, moving-on, new-age, psychology, relationships, spiritual, unity, vibration, wisdom, zen

40 likes

#6

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

tags: centeredness, expectations, philosophy, zen

32 likes

#7

“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

tags: education, inspiration, inspirational-quotes, wisdom-quote, zen

31 likes

#8

“The baby looks at things all day without winking; that is because his eyes are not focused on any particular object. He goes without knowing where he is going, and stops without knowing what he is doing. He merges himself within the surroundings and moves along with it. These are the principles of mental hygiene.”
― Chuang-Tzu

tags: chuang-tzu, lao-tzu, zen

88 likes

#9

“Preoccupied with a single leaf you won't see the tree.”
― Vagabond

tags: martial-arts, zen

70 likes

#10

“All those Zen Masters throwing young kids in the mud because they can’t answer their silly word questions.'
'That’s because they want them to realize mud is better than words, boy.”
― Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums

tags: verbality, words, zen, zen-buddhism

1 likes

#11

“Pardon all runners,
All speechless, alien winds,
All mad waters.

Pardon their impulses,
Their wild attitudes,
Their young flights, their reticence.

When a message has no clothes on
How can it be spoken.”
― Thomas Merton

tags: compassion, path, seekers, youth, zen

37 likes

#12

“When mind exists undisturbed in the Way, nothing in the world can offend, and when a thing can no longer offend it ceases to exist in the old way. When no discriminating thoughts arise, the old mind ceases to exist.”
― Sengstan, Hsin Hsin Ming

tags: wisdom, zen

26 likes

#13

“Consider the sunlight. You may see it is near, yet if you follow it from world to world you will never catch it in your hands. Then you may describe it as far away and, lo, you will see it just before your eyes. Follow it and, behold, it escapes you; run from it and it follows you close. You can neither possess it nor have done with it. From this example you can understand how it is with the true Nature of all things and, henceforth, there will be no need to grieve or to worry about such things.”
― Huang Po, The Zen Teaching of Huang Po: On the Transmission of Mind

tags: buddha, impermanence, nature-of-things, truth, zen

22 likes

#14

“Like wind-- In it, with it, of it. Of it just like a sail, so light and strong that, even when it is bent flat, it gathers all the power of the wind without hampering its course.

Like light-- In light, lit through by light, transformed into light. Like the lens which disappears in the light it focuses.

Like wind. Like light.

Just this--on these expanses, on these heights.”
― Dag Hammarskjöld, Markings

tags: path, sword-sentiments, wind, zen

16 likes

#15

“Lao Tzu once said, 'Nature doesn’t hurry, yet everything is accomplished.'

A single seed planted, eventually becomes a garden in time – when things get tough, tend to the garden in your mind.”
― Jennifer Sodini

tags: ayahuasca, buddhism, consciousness, mindfulness, psychedelic, psychedelics, spirituality, zen

13 likes

#16

“There is no other space, no other time. This moment is all. In this moment the whole existence converges, in this moment all is available.”
― Osho, Zen: The Path of Paradox

tags: convergence, existence, moment, time, zen

8 likes

#17

“Zen is magic. It gives you the key to open the miraculous. And the miraculous is in you and the key is also in you.”
― Osho, Zen: The Path of Paradox

tags: key, magic, miraculous, zen

8 likes

#18

“Love is being able to view a situation without adding duality to it.”
― Alaric Hutchinson, Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life

tags: acceptance, consciousness, duality, growth, inner-peace, inner-reflection, inspirational, love, meaning-of-life, meditation, mindfulness, new-age, new-day, psychology, reflection, relationships, spiritual, wisdom, zen

13 likes

#19

“In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes: so with time present.”
― Leonardo da Vinci, The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci

tags: life, perspective, time, zen

3 likes

#20

“To deny the reality of things is to miss their reality; to assert the emptiness of things is to miss their reality. The more you talk and think about it, the further astray you wander from the truth. Stop talking and thinking and there is nothing you will not be able to know.”
― Sengstan, Hsin Hsin Ming

tags: wisdom, zen

37 likes

#21

“Even the truth is just a mere thought.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

tags: mysticism, no-duality, no-mind, philosophy, science, spirituality, thinking, truth, yoga, zen

3 likes

#22

“The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. When love and hate are both absent everything becomes clear and undisguised. Make the smallest distinction, however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart. If you wish to see the truth then hold no opinion for or against. The struggle of what one likes and what one dislikes is the disease of the mind.”
― Sengstan, Hsin Hsin Ming

tags: wisdom, zen

105 likes

#23

“The breath you claim as yours,
Once stirred the dust of stars.
The blood that runs your course,
Flowed through forgotten winds.
The soil you walk, remembers you,
Not as an owner, but as its child.
You are just the turning page,
Of a universal, waking dream.”
― Alexis karpouzos, PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE: EXPLORING ONTOLOGY, AESTHETICS AND HERMENEUTICS

tags: art, literature, literature-quotes, mysticism-sufi-wisdom, philosophy, poetry, religion-quotes, zen, zen-buddhism

1 likes

#24

“It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable.”
― Seneca, The Stoic Philosophy of Seneca: Essays and Letters

tags: consicousness, dissociation, mind, stoicism, transcendence, zen

689 likes

#25

“The truth knocks on the door and you say, "Go away, I'm looking for the truth," and so it goes away. Puzzling.”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

tags: inspirational, truth, zen

671 likes

#26

“Only the hand that erases can write the true thing.”
― Meister Eckhart

tags: fallibility, truth, zen

331 likes

#27

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few”
― Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice

tags: inspirational, philosophy, zen

281 likes

#28

“Always ask yourself: "What will happen if I say nothing?”
― Kamand Kojouri

tags: adage, always, aphorism, ask, calm, circumstance, everything, flow, forgive, give-in, happen, harmony, inspirational, kamand, kamand-kojouri, kind, kindness, kojouri, let-go, maxim, mind, mindful, mindfulness, moment, nothing, peace, present, quote, rights, say, serene, serenity, silence, silent, simple-quotes, speak, surrender, talk, think, think-before-you-act, thought, tranquility, truth, unity, zen

156 likes

#29

“The more you know, the less you need.”
― Yvon Chouinard, Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman

tags: less-is-more, wisdom, zen

123 likes