Said the monk: "All these mountains and rivers and the earth and stars - where do they come from?" Said the master: "Where does your question come from?"
Problems only exist in the human mind.
Silence is not the absence of sound, but the absence of self.
Sin is a refusal to grow, a refusal to love, a refusal to get committed, to be concerned, and to take risks.
the greatest learning of the ages lies in accepting life exactly as it comes to us.
When you cling, life is destroyed; when you hold on to anything, you cease to live.
What, concretely, is Enlightenment ?" "Seeing Reality as it is," said the Master. "Doesn't everyone see Reality as it is?" "Oh, no! Most people see it as they think it is." "What's the difference?" "The difference between thinking you are drowning in a stormy sea and knowing you cannot drown because there isn't any water in sight for miles around.
God in heaven holds each person by a string. When you sin, you cut the string. Then God ties it up again. Making a knot, bringing you a little closer to Him. Again and again your sins cut the string and with each knot God keeps drawing you closer and closer.
You're so ashamed of your past; drop it! You're so proud of your past; drop it!
Everybody was talking about the religious man who committed suicide. While no one in the monastery approved of the man's action, some say they admired his faith. Faith?" said the Master. He had the courage of his convictions, didn't he?" That was fanaticism, not faith. Faith demands a greater courage still: to reexamine one's convictions and reject them if they do not fit the facts.
Negative feelings are in you, not in reality. Stop trying to change reality. That's crazy! Stop trying to change the other person. We spend all our time and energy trying to change external circumstances, trying to change our spouses, our bosses, our friends, our enemies, and everybody else. We don't have to change anything. Negative feelings are in you.
Because you cannot see outside of you what you fail to see inside.
Whatever is truly alive must die. Look at the flowers; only plastic flowers never die.
Is there life before death? - that is the question!
As the Japanese Zen masters say, “Don't seek the truth; just drop your opinions”. Drop your theories; don't seek the truth.
The only way someone can be of help to you is in challenging your ideas. If you're ready to listen and if you're ready to be challenged, there's one thing that you can do, but no one can help you. What is this most important thing of all? It's called self-observation.
One always treads with a joyful step when one has dropped the burden called the ego.
Concepts are always frozen. Reality flows.
As soon as you look at the world through an ideology, you are finished. No reality fits ideology.
Happiness is our natural state. Happiness is the natural state of little children, to whom the kingdom belongs until they have been polluted and contaminated by the stupidity of society and culture.
A prisoner lived in solitary confinement for years. He saw and spoke to no one and his meals were served through an opening in the wall. One day an ant came into his cell. The man contemplated it in fascination as it crawled around the room. He held it in the palm of his hand the better to observe it, gave it a grain or two, and kept it under his tin cup at night. One day it suddenly struck him that it had taken him ten long years of solitary confinement to open his eyes to the loveliness of an ant.
If you don't look at things through your concepts, you'll never be bored. Every single thing is unique.
What can I do to see Reality as it is?" The master smiled and said, "I have good news and bad news for you, my friend." "What's the bad news?" "There's nothing you can do to see it is a gift." "And what's the good news?" "There's nothing you can do to see it is a gift.
Rare indeed, is the relationship in which the other is not cultivated for what one can get for oneself.
A zealous disciple expressed a desire to teach others the Truth and asked the Master what he thought about this. The Master said, "Wait." Each year the disciple would return with the same request and each time the Master would give him the same reply: "Wait." One day he said to the Master, "When will I be ready to teach?" Said the Master, "When your excessive eagerness to teach has left you.
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