Zen Master Quotes

“I have lived with several Zen masters -- all of them cats.”
― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“The essence of your mind is not born, so it will never die. It is not an existence, which is perishable. It is not an emptiness, which is a mere void. It has neither colour nor form. It enjoys no pleasures and suffers no pains.
I know you are very ill. Like a good Zen student, you are facing that sickness squarely. You may not know exactly who is suffering, but question yourself: What is the essence of this mind? Think only of this. You will need no more. Covet nothing. Your end which is endless is as a snowflake dissolving in pure air.”
― Bassui Takusho

“To see into the meaning of Zen is not enough; it must be thoroughly assimilated into every fibre of one's existence; and to do this fourteen years' constant application cannot be said to be too arduous a task. In fact, the Zen monk has to pass about that length of time in the Zendo before he is fully qualified as a Zen master.”
― Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, The Training Of The Zen Buddhist Monk

“The disciple asked: Master, does the fact that our temple was built on a high mountain indicate our determination to approach a mystical intelligent power in the heavens? The master replied: No! It just expresses our desire to escape from the fool below!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“The job of a Zen master is to transmit the dharma.

The word dharma is a cognate of the Pali word for carrying. The dharma that is passed from teacher to student involves the essential teachings of the Buddha and the spirit of living those truths. Transmission is applied both to the ritual identification and acknowledgment of a particular student as the legitimate successor, or dharma heir, of a Zen master, and to the ordinary, daily interactions between the teacher and all students.

Transmit is an oddly technical verb, and the analogies it occasions are oddly useful. If you imagine the dharma as an electrical current arcing across a distance from one conductive wire to another, you get the basic idea. However, if you have even a rudimentary grasp of physics, you know that the power of an electrical charge decreases as it travels this way This is precisely what is not supposed to happen to the dharma as it passes from master to disciple. A dharma heir is meant to be someone whose enlightenment or understanding equals or, preferably, surpasses that of the master.”
― Michael Downing, Shoes Outside the Door: Desire, Devotion, and Excess at San Francisco Zen Center

“Student: Master, can a meteorite fall on our head while we are walking? Master: Yes, it can fall! Student: What precautions can we take against this? Master: Try to strengthen your head! Student: But I want a realistic measure that works! Master: Then let me tell you something realistic: There is no possibility of a meteorite falling on your head, because nothing can fall on something that does not exist!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“In authentic Zen practice, the living Zen master is the highest authority on Buddhism, and students should not accept the interference of even Shakyamuni or Amitabha Buddha when it comes to their practice.”
― Kōun Yamada, Zen: The Authentic Gate