Shimmering Zen Quotes

discovered is that I'm an image maker, and I don't care how its made - whether it's through painting or photography or drawing - I just want to create images. ~ James Stanford

When people of different religions or countries harm people as a means to create peace, it's out of the compulsion to make all colors the same. This is also why people think that war is a logical avenue towards creating peace. People who do not have or know inner peace perpetuate these shards of illusions. Thus, they are projecting their fragmented concepts of peace out onto the world. ~ Alaric Hutchinson

Fifteen days after we are born, we begin to discriminate between colors. For the rest of our lives, barring blunted or blinded sight, we find ourselves face-to-face with all these phenomena at once, and we call the whole shimmering mess "color." You might even say that it is the business of the eye to make colored forms out of what is essentially shimmering. This is how we "get around" in the world. Some might also call it the source of our suffering. ~ Maggie Nelson

Today we can see many different forms of Buddhism, such as Zen and Theravada Buddhism. All these different aspects are practices of Buddha's teachings, and all are equally precious; they are just different presentations. ~ Geshe Kelsang Gyatso

How hard, then, and yet how easy it is to understand Zen! Hard because to understand it is not to understand it; easy because not to understand it is to understand it. ~ D.T. Suzuki

They became desperate for an antidote, such as coziness & color. They tried to bury the obligatory white sofas under Thai-silk throw pillows of every rebellious, iridescent shade of Magenta, pink, and tropical green imaginable. But the architect returned, as he always does, like the conscience of a Calvinist, and he lectured them and hectored them and chucked the shimmering little sweet things out. ~ Tom Wolfe

I would have thought that I would have become one of those parents - just because it's my nature to be such a perfectionist - that anything falling short, I would have seen as a failure. But something has happened to me over the past few years - it's not Zen, believe me, I'm not at all Zen - but I'm so appreciative of even the chaos. ~ Brooke Shields

How often, you wonder, has the direction of your life been shaped by such misunderstandings? How many opportunities have you been denied
or, for that matter, awarded
because someone failed to see you properly? How many friends have you lost, how many have you gained, because they glimpsed some element of your personality that shone through for only an instant, and in circumstances you could never reproduce? An illusion of water shimmering at the far bend of a highway. ~ Kevin Brockmeier

You see, from where I stand, there are a couple of ways. You continue your journey and you will find your path or the path is already there and you aren't just able to see it. ~ Ackshat Deoli

The concept of minimalism is to relax. Like a Zen monk in training, it is something that brings equilibrium to the heart. I don't necessarily think it has any problems, but if I were to force myself to name one, I would say that since the minimalist feeling already includes its own universe, I think it might kill the drive that we would otherwise have to commit the physically impossible and attempt to travel into outer space. ~ Takashi Murakami

You know you have arrived when you have stopped caring about the destination ~ Srividya Srinivasan

We are creatures of habit, and leveraging our habitual tendencies is one of the best ways to develop discipline. ~ Ernest Cadorin

Left alone, I am overtaken by the northern void-no wind, no cloud, no track, no bird, only the crystal crescents between peaks, the ringing monuments of rock that, freed from the talons of ice and snow, thrust an implacable being into the blue. In the early light, the rock shadows on the snow are sharp; in the tension between light and dark is the power of the universe. This stillness to which all returns, this is reality, and soul and sanity have no more meaning than a gust of snow; such transience and insignificance are exalting, terrifying, all at once ... Snow mountains, more than sea or sky, serve as a mirror to one's own true being, utterly still, utterly clear, a void, an Emptiness without life or sound that carries in Itself all life, all sound. ~ Peter Matthiessen

Most of us in our thinking are wandering from this to that to the other thing, and are constantly distracted. And Zen is the opposite of that. It's being completely here, fully in the present. And you know when you're completely concentrated, you're not really aware of your own existence. It's rather the same as the sense of sight. If you see your eyes, that is to say if you see spots in front of your eyes, or something on the lens of the eye, then you're not seeing properly. To the degree to which you're seeing properly, you're unaware of your eyes. In the same way, if your clothes fit well, you're unaware of them on your body. And if you're completely concentrated on what you're doing, you're unaware of yourself. ~ Alan W. Watts

Soldiers falling fast
Battle of white and scarlet
Blossoms on the ground ~ David Kudler

The true purpose [of Zen] is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes ... Zen practice is to open up our small mind. ~ Shunryu Suzuki

We're all in this together and we don't have much time. ~ Richard Aitken

There is a story in Zen circles about a man and a horse. The horse is galloping quickly, and it appears that the man on the horse is going somewhere important. Another man, standing alongside the road, shouts, "Where are you going?"and the first man replies, "I don't know! Ask the horse!" This is also our story. We are riding a horse, we don't know where we are going, and we can't stop. The horse is our habit energy pulling us along, and we are powerless. We are always running,and it has become a habit. We struggle all the time, even during our sleep. We are at war within ourselves, and we can easily start a war with others. We have to learn the art of stopping. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Here, then, is the last moment of true perception, a man fishing in a red jacket and a cloudy sky reflected on opaque water. ~ Michael Cunningham

I have my own way to walk and for some reason or other Zen is right in the middle of it wherever I go. So there it is, with all its beautiful purposelessness, and it has become very familiar to me though I do not know "what it is." Or even if it is an "it." Not to be foolish and multiply words, I'll say simply that it seems to me that Zen is the very atmosphere of the Gospels, and the Gospels are bursting with it. It is the proper climate for any monk, no matter what kind of monk he may be. If I could not breathe Zen I would probably die of spiritual asphyxiation. ~ Thomas Merton

Have no fear. Trust in the vibrational currents of your life. ~ Alaric Hutchinson

Only in the moments of being alone in the darkness on the raft, will you have the space to speak, listen, and to act from the heart. Only in the moments of pain, do we begin to empathize with humankind. Only when you are lost, you will find new meaning. Float on. ~ Forrest Curran

Until today, it really pissed me off that I'd become this totally centered Zen Master and nobody had noticed. Still, I'm doing the little FAX thing. I write little HAIKU things and FAX them around to everyone. When I pass people in the hall at work, I get totally ZEN right in everyone's hostile little FACE. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

The light filtered through the trees, rays of sunlight splitting around the vast trunks, the branches above us fluttering in a faint wind, and the green needles of Douglas Firs shimmering silver underneath in the breeze. ~ Ned Hayes

Leo Babauta's brilliant little book Zen Habits helps you think your way through this problem. His program is simple: Attempt to create only one significant work a year. ~ Seth Godin

With passions stilled and one's nature firm, all destinies are in harmony; When the full moon of contemplation is reached you will be pure. ~ Wu Cheng'en

Until we recognize the SELF that exists apart from who we think we are - we cannot know the Ch'an ( ZEN ) MIND ~ D.T. Suzuki

Life is a whirlwind of many opportunities. Choose to embrace all of them in deepest gratitude. Learn to forgive yourself and honour the heart that beats within you, as well as the head that rests on your shoulders. Learn how to believe in people again and not be judging or cynical to various beliefs.
We are all of one light on this one Earth, and loving humanity makes all the difference. ~ Michelle Cruz-Rosado

There isn't a Zen zone on this side of the planet that could calm me down. ~ Summer Lane

You grow, learn, and the more I can sit in silence and be comfortable with myself, the more I can make noise, as ironic and Zen Buddhist and satanic as it sounds! ~ Nikki Sixx

A female may be poor or delicate or a spinster, but it does seem ill-advised of Miss Liddiard to combine all three. ~ Zen Cho

When you find nothing, Morris said, it means you're eliminating what surrounds the something.
Is that a Zen thing? Eve questioned.
If not, it should be. ~ J.D. Robb

No one knows everything. No one knows nothing. Everyone has a piece of the puzzle. ~ Lama Surya Das

Plants exist in the weather and light rays that surround them - waving in the wind, shimmering in the sunlight. I am always puzzling over how to draw such things. ~ Hayao Miyazaki

The law of attraction is synonymous to the law of sacrifice, in which you get in return what you are decisively choose to give up. The universe in all her infinity beauty generously opens up gates that you had no idea existed when you close others, but she requires you to walk through the gates solely on your own will and strength, with the other doors that you have left behind often times being forever locked and eternally inaccessible. ~ Forrest Curran

Rigging is like Zen meditation. You must bend over the boat until your back is breaking, until your brain is filled with numbers and fractions of numbers, until you can accurately measure an oarlock's pitch without bothering to use the pitch meter. Only then will you see the way of eternal rigging happiness. ~ Brad Alan Lewis

When we are aware and sensitive to what's happening, we can take steps to make things better. ~ Ernest Cadorin

The shimmering night does not stay for mortals, not misfortunes, nor wealth, but in a moment it is gone, and to the turn of another comes joy and loss. ~ Sophocles

If your creativity comes out of your silence, out of your Zen, out of your meditations, then it is authentic, original. If it comes only as an occupation because you are feeling lost and there is nothing to do - a long holiday, so you start doing something ... That is not coming out of your silences, it is coming out of your crazy mind. ~ Rajneesh