Western Buddhism Quotes

“The "Western Buddhist" meditative stance is arguably the most efficient way, for us, to fully participate in the capitalist dynamic while retaining the appearance of mental sanity.”
― Slavoj Žižek, On Belief

“Shunryu Suzuki, a Japanese Zen Buddhist priest, turned up in San Francisco in 1959. He installed himself in a strange old wooden building on Bush Street, near the corner of Laguna Street, in Japantown. He was fifty-five, just over five feet tall, and he was just about as unlikely a candidate for establishing Buddhism in the West as anyone could have imagined.”
― Michael Downing, Shoes Outside the Door: Desire, Devotion, and Excess at San Francisco Zen Center