Independent Zen Quotes

Branding is fascinating. Creating a brand that is authentic and timeless is what entrepreneurs dream of. Dare to be different, dare to dream. ~ Independent Zen

Life is beautiful. Live every day in the present. Be grateful for who you are and appreciate the world around you. ~ Independent Zen

The positive effect music has in our lives is understated. It can influence mind-state and motivate us to reach for the stars. ~ Independent Zen

That's because true travel, the kind with no predetermined end, is one of the most selfish endeavors we can possibly undertake-an act in which we focus solely on our own fulfillment, with little regard to those we leave behind. After all, we're the ones venturing out into the big crazy world, filling up journals, growing like weeds. And we have the gall to think they're just sitting at home, soaking in security and stability.
It is only when we reopen these wrapped and ribboned boxes, upon our triumphant return home, that we discover nothing is the way we had left it before. ~ Stephanie Elizondo Griest

I've realized that what you think of when you make a 'big movie,' if it's actually a green screen movie, it's like doing independent New York theater because you don't have any backgrounds or props. So it's kind of like making the lowest budgeted film you could possibly imagine, plus $100 million. ~ Emile Hirsch

Other women who flew were women of independent means. But I had to do something with it. ~ Nancy Bird Walton

Joy is not the same as pleasure or happiness. A wicked and evil man may have pleasure, while any ordinary mortal is capable of being happy. Pleasure generally comes from things, and always through the senses; happiness comes from humans through fellowship. Joy comes from loving God and neighbor. Pleasure is quick and violent, like a flash of lightning. Joy is steady and abiding, like a fixed star. Pleasure depends on external circumstances, such as money, food, travel, etc. Joy is independent of them, for it comes from a good conscience and love of God. ~ Fulton J. Sheen

What are the purposes of modern-day schools? The primary purpose is warehousing -- keeping children off the streets, out of the workplace, and out of the home for most of the day to the benefit of parents, some employers, and the general public. Call it the "jail function" as John Holt put it frankly. There is no attempt to cloak this fact. In a blog post bemoaning the number of days her children have off from school, one blogger's headline read: "November Is the Cruelest Month for Moms".

The second purpose is teaching children how to comply with orders, submit to authority, and fit into our consumerist, capitalist economy. This is not usually acknowledged. Schools, educators, and policymakers are not candidly saying that the objective of schools is to produce compliant students, but that's generally what happens.

The third purpose is ranking and sorting students based on their performance in school. It's an efficient way to determine who should be rewarded for her compliance, or in other words, who should go to the top colleges and universities and later hold positions of power and influence and society. As the eminent linguist Noam Chomsky once put it, "The whole educational and professional training system is a very elaborate filter, which just weeds out people who are too independent, and who think for themselves, and who don't know how to be submissive, and so on -- because they're dysfunctional to the institutions.

The fourth is a distor ~ Nikhil Goyal

Hitherto, no rival hypothesis has been proposed as a substitute for the doctrine of transmutation; for 'independent creation,' as it is often termed, or the direct intervention of the Supreme Cause, must simply be considered as an avowal that we deem the question to lie beyond the domain of science. ~ Charles Lyell

I think it's crazy, crazy that book tours lose so much money. They shouldn't. Book tours should be part of what keeps independent bookstores vibrant and profitable. ~ John Green

One famous Zen master actually described spiritual practice as "one mistake after another," which is to say, one opportunity after another to learn. It is from "difficulties, mistakes, and errors" that we actually learn. To live life is to make a succession of errors. Understanding this can bring us great ease and forgiveness for ourselves and others - we are at ease with the difficulties of life. ~ Jack Kornfield

It's very hard to find critics or a magazine today that will publish material that is genuinely independent and written without any concern about being cut off some distributor's list or not be invited or flown into screenings. ~ Wim Wenders

I first got really interested in Noh in about 1977. There was an independent bookstore in Bloomington, Indiana where I was going to high school. It was a really nice place. There was a New Directions paperback. It was the Pound/Fenollosa book, 'The Classic Noh Theatre of Japan.' ~ William T. Vollmann

So, without telling any of my Zen-snob buddies, I liked to pretend everything was the Pure Land, that my life was already perfect as it was. ~ Jaimal Yogis

The United States has grown into a remarkable nation specifically because of our independent spirit and free market. ~ Tammy Bruce

Charity is injurious unless it helps the recipient to become independent of it. ~ John D. Rockefeller

I nudged myself closer to the ledge and closed my eyes and thought 'Oh what a life this is, why do we have to be born in the first place, and only so we can have our poor gentle flesh laid out to such impossible horrors as huge mountains and rock and empty space,' and with horror I remembered the famous Zen saying, 'When you get to the top of a mountain, keep climbing.' The saying made my hair stand on end; it had been such cute poetry sitting on Alvah's straw mats. ~ Jack Kerouac

What we take ourselves to be doing when we think about what is the case or how we should act is something that cannot be reconciled with a reductive naturalism, for reasons distinct from those that entail the irreducibility of consciousness. It is not merely the subjectivity of thought but its capacity to transcend subjectivity and to discover what is objectively the case that presents a problem ...
Thought and reasoning are correct or incorrect in virtue of something independent of the thinker's beliefs, and even independent of the community of thinkers to which he belongs. (p. 71) ~ Thomas Nagel

It's like being in the position of - in half of the industry's mind, you're kind of a cult-following, independent rocker. And on the other hand, you're a sellout. But neither one of them are right. ~ Ben Folds

First a small team writes a small system. Then they find the natural fracture lines and divide the system into relatively independent parts for expansion. The architects help choose the most appropriate fracture lines and then follow the system as a whole, keeping the big picture in mind as the groups focus on their smaller section. ~ Kent Beck

Traditionalism is not fashionable. It is the dog-crawl to fashion's catwalk. ~ Fennel Hudson

The aunts' conception of the right to privacy went far enough to allow you to close the toilet door when you were peeing, but no further. ~ Zen Cho

To have some deep feeling about Buddhism is not the point; we just do what we should do, like eating supper and going to bed. This is Buddhism. ~ Shunryu Suzuki

Zen says: be empty. Look without any idea. Look into the nature of things but with no idea, with no prejudice, with no presupposition. ~ Rajneesh

You are not your thoughts!! This simple yet powerful statement can greatly change the quality of your life. ~ Dawn Gluskin

And so my father changed his name to William Pretty and here he grew up and led an independent life. And if it was not happy, he didn't know it. ~ Annie Proulx

Get into Parliament, make tiresome speeches; you will have great offers; do not accept them at first, then do: then make great provision for yourself and family, and then call yourself an independent country gentleman. ~ Hans Stanley

Gregori was the one who came up with the idea about human psychic women, and I'm certain he's right. You and your mother support his theory. He also thinks there's something in the Carpathian woman's chemistry that makes it nearly impossible for the female chromosome to beat out the male."
"Wouldn't you know he'd think it was the woman," Shea sniffed contemptuously. "More than likely the men determine the sex, just like in humans, and they just can't produce girls." She grinned at Raven. "The men bring about their own destruction."
Raven laughed. "Mikhail would never let me speak to you again if he could hear us. He thinks I'm too independent and disrespectful already." She shrugged carelessly. "It's probably true, but it's a lot of fun. I love the way he gets that pained look on his face. He's so cute."
"Cute? I'll bet he likes that description. ~ Christine Feehan

I really do like the independent way of working. You don't get much studio intrusion compared to when you're working on a big Hollywood film where there tends to always be loads of people interfering. The only problem, though, with independent features is that they are hard to sell. ~ Steven Bauer

There is no more important struggle for American democracy than ensuring a diverse, independent and free media. Free Press is at the heart of that struggle. ~ Bill Moyers

I've been sort of traveling around the country for ten years talking about independent features. ~ Brian De Palma

It would be wrong to suggest that Scotland could not be another such successful, independent country. ~ David Cameron

I feel I'm pretty zen and laid back. I don't have a lot of rage in my real life. ~ Stark Sands

In the biblical worldview, the purpose of all creation is to benefit man. This anthropocentric view of nature, and indeed of the whole universe, is completely at odds with the current secular idealization of nature. This secular view posits that nature has its own intrinsic meaning and purpose, independent of man. ~ Dennis Prager

At an independent label, you have to figure out inventive ways to promote without spending the money. ~ Greg Laswell

I love making independent movies, and that's pretty much what I'm going to be doing for the rest of my years. ~ Milla Jovovich

And you know, we did it as an independent film, and we weren't expecting it to be on television, and Lifetime ended up buying it. And the viewers responded intensely to that film. ~ Jenna Elfman

The cats were relaxing in a patch of sunlight on the rug without a thought in their sleek brown heads. What matter to them that it was Sunday-or even Thursday? Every day was Today in their scheme of things, and there was no such thing as Yesterday or Tomorrow. ~ Lilian Jackson Braun