Zen Quotes

“Suppose we have a bucket filled with dirty water and pour a glass of clean water into it. Although we will see no difference when we look at it, the addition of that glass of water has made the water in the bucket that much cleaner. Likewise, when we sit for even a single period of zazen our personality becomes purified in proportion to the length of that sitting. Although we may not be the least aware of it, we can be certain we have moved a step closer to the realization of our essential nature.”
― Kōun Yamada, Zen: The Authentic Gate

“Practice as many periods a day as is reasonable given your aspiration and circumstances, and make sure you faithfully stick to your schedule every day. Say you are sitting three periods a day. What is the best time to do so? This will also depend on circumstances. The ideal scenario would be to sit one period after rising and getting dressed, one period during the day, and one period before going to bed. Those who work full time may find it impossible to sit a period of meditation during the day, in which case they could incorporate that time as part of their morning or evening sit. Once again, the important thing is to practice as much as your circumstances allow.”
― Kōun Yamada, Zen: The Authentic Gate

“The ideal number of sitting periods in a day will depend on individual aspiration and circumstances. If we decide that one of our periods of sitting will be thirty minutes, then sitting four periods of zazen in a day would already amount to two hours. At the very least, everyone should be able to make time for one period each day, and most people should be able to sit at least two, for a total of an hour a day. People with high aspirations should be able to sit three or four periods a day, although maintaining such a schedule every day is hardly easy.”
― Kōun Yamada, Zen: The Authentic Gate

“Beginners who sit on their own should start with periods of five minutes and gradually work up to about twenty-five or thirty minutes for a single sitting.”
― Kōun Yamada, Zen: The Authentic Gate

“Many people wonder about the optimal length for a period of zazen. Sitting a short period of time is by no means less effective than a longer period. Zazen has worth and merit in itself, no matter how long one sits. Sitting from morning to night is not necessarily the best meditation. If you sit for a short period of time, you receive benefit from that sitting, and if you sit for a long period of time, you also benefit.”
― Kōun Yamada, Zen: The Authentic Gate

“Thirty minutes of sharp, alert sitting is far more beneficial than an hour of sleepy, dull zazen.”
― Kōun Yamada, Zen: The Authentic Gate

“Just sitting” is the English translation of the Japanese word shikantaza. Shikan means “only” or “just.” The za of taza means “to sit,” and the syllable ta is a verbal intensifier. Whereas both counting the breath and following the breath use the breath as their point of focus, just sitting consists of just the sitting itself. In this sense, it is the purest form of meditation, the original meditation practiced by the buddhas and Zen ancestors. If you are sitting to penetrate the innermost recesses of yourself, just sitting is the ideal form of meditation. Dōgen Zenji broke through to complete enlightenment when practicing just sitting.”
― Kōun Yamada, Zen: The Authentic Gate

“You must summon up a reckless resolve to break through, no matter what, and throw yourself away. When you break through, you realize great life.”
― Kōun Yamada, Zen: The Authentic Gate

“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

“What goes on in the private interview is between the student and teacher. No one else should even inquire about it.”
― Kōun Yamada, Zen: The Authentic Gate

“If a person truly believes in Mahayana Buddhism, then whether they are monk, nun, or layperson, the whole of his or her life will be directed toward the ultimate objective expressed in the final verse of the bodhisattva vow: “The Way of the Buddha is unsurpassed; I vow to attain it.”
― Kōun Yamada, Zen: The Authentic Gate

“The buddhas and ancestors were originally ordinary beings like us, and at some point we too will definitely become buddhas and Zen ancestors.”
― Kōun Yamada, Zen: The Authentic Gate

“It is inevitable that all human beings will perfectly realize their essential nature. Each of us, as perfect and infinite existence, is of necessity on the path to buddhahood, even in the phenomenal world. This is what we call “the process of becoming a buddha.”
― Kōun Yamada, Zen: The Authentic Gate

“When we are dreaming we take the mountains, rivers, flowers, trees, roads, houses, and people we see to objectively exist, but when we wake, we realize that they were all products of our minds. In the same way, as long as unenlightened beings remain deep in the dream of delusion, they will only see things in the world as objectively existent, no matter what we might say to them. But once they awaken to their True Self, they realize that the entire universe is the brilliant light of the self.”
― Kōun Yamada, Zen: The Authentic Gate

“Eventually all human beings grow dissatisfied with animalistic or materialistic life, and when the time is right, they begin to seek out the equilibrium of a spiritual life.”
― Kōun Yamada, Zen: The Authentic Gate

“The bodhisattvas Manjushri and Samantabhadra, attendants of Shakyamuni Buddha who stand at his right and left in Buddhist iconography, represent the two aspects of the perfected character of the Buddha: great wisdom and great compassion. But these bodhisattvas are not merely symbols in our consciousness, and thinking them to be unreal is a mistake. Likewise, buddhas such as Vairochana, Baisajyaguru, and Amitabha, as well as the myriad buddhas mentioned in the Sutra of the Three Thousand Names of the Buddha are not only names of the infinite potential of our essential nature, but are actual buddhas.”
― Kōun Yamada, Zen: The Authentic Gate

“When a Zen practitioner vows to achieve the wisdom of enlightenment and to practice determinedly in this world and beyond, it’s hard to imagine what a wonderful character might develop from this intention. Since the future extends thousands, millions, and billions of years into eternity, such a person will inevitably attain buddhahood. Given this tenet, how many people in the past must have already attained buddhahood?”
― Kōun Yamada, Zen: The Authentic Gate

“In the simplest terms, “life continues” means that life is eternal and indestructible. According to the natural sciences, when a life form, human being or otherwise, dies, the materials that comprise its body disintegrate into their basic elements and disperse; death is final, and any talk of life after death is nothing more than superstition. Buddhism rejects this as a cutting-off or annihilation view.”
― Kōun Yamada, Zen: The Authentic Gate

“We should always keep our practice a secret from others.”
― Kōun Yamada, Zen: The Authentic Gate

“Though the practitioner may be unaware of it, he or she is a complete manifestation of the essential world; we all experience the same single buddhahood. From the first step in our practice to the very last, even if there are billions of stages on the way, the content of the meditation at any two stages is exactly the same. We are forever treading the buddha ground and perfectly manifesting buddha nature.”
― Kōun Yamada, Zen: The Authentic Gate

“The single word “enlightenment” covers endless degrees of depth and clarity of experience. Everybody is different: passing the koan Mu during one’s first week-long period of intensive meditation is enlightenment; practicing arduously for thirty more years to break through the final layers of illusion and attain the deepest state of true freedom is also enlightenment.”
― Kōun Yamada, Zen: The Authentic Gate

“There is no perfect Zen master. All teachers have their faults and bad habits (some have developed even worse habits than ordinary people). But as long as the person has clarified the true Dharma, he or she should be more aware than any one of those faults and be engaged in the arduous post-enlightenment practice of wiping them away. If the person is not making such an effort, then the true Dharma that was supposed to have been clarified becomes suspect.”
― Kōun Yamada, Zen: The Authentic Gate

“Although it is not easy to become enlightened, it is possible if we practice with utter earnestness.”
― Kōun Yamada, Zen: The Authentic Gate

“We cannot attain genuine enlightenment unless we practice under an authentic teacher; we will be led to a spurious experience if we practice under a false teacher. Nothing should be feared more than this.”
― Kōun Yamada, Zen: The Authentic Gate

“Although I have defined just sitting as the single greatest thoroughfare in Zen for students at every level, it would be very difficult, especially for the beginner, to reach enlightenment through its practice without great perseverance and stamina. If a person using just sitting really breaks through, chances are that they will achieve a great seeing into their own nature without leaving even a trace of delusion. Nevertheless, for anyone other than the great Zen figures of the past, who had unremitting zeal, it is very hard to reach enlightenment through just sitting alone. This is particularly so for modern Zen practitioners who may not possess the intrepid spirit of the ancients.”
― Kōun Yamada, Zen: The Authentic Gate

“Zen turns the light of introspection inward and pursues the question, “What am I?”
― Kōun Yamada, Zen: The Authentic Gate

“Although the Sino-Japanese character kū means “empty” or “void,” emptiness in Zen is neither nihilistic nor a vacuum; it doesn’t mean that there is nothing at all. Even expressions such as “All things are impermanent and empty” or “From the beginning there is not one thing” do not mean that things are completely empty. If I were pressed to say something about emptiness, I would say that it doesn’t depend on our five senses, it transcends them. If this weren’t so, the words “Form is none other than emptiness” couldn’t be reversed to read, “Emptiness is none other than form.”
― Kōun Yamada, Zen: The Authentic Gate

“Space and time are only concepts; neither actually exists. If you can’t gain salvation on this very spot, then it will be beyond your reach no matter where you go.”
― Kōun Yamada, Zen: The Authentic Gate

“Explanation comes from experience, but experience never results from explanation.”
― Kōun Yamada, Zen: The Authentic Gate

“All the anxieties and suffering of humanity stem from the paradox that while we are by nature perfect, we appear in the phenomenal world as imperfection itself — limited, relative, mortal, and all too fallible — unaware of our true nature.”
― Kōun Yamada, Zen: The Authentic Gate