Do you want to get the best Zen phrases to meditate?
There often comes a time when you can no longer deal with your problems, when you can no longer see your path clearly and when you no longer know how to deal with so much confusion, that is called “life”. However, these difficult times only come to teach us important lessons that we must learn in order to evolve.
Unfortunately, these problems can be very difficult to deal with. This is why you go to Zen to try to get all the answers. Zen is a form of Buddhism that emphasizes meditation to achieve peace of mind. Zen masters say that it is more a way of life than a religion and that everyone can practice it regardless of their religion.
Practicing Zen is believed to have a calming effect on the mind and body, which not only helps one to lead a healthy life, but also to deal with various problems efficiently. “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear” says Zen. So, if you are ready to learn, here are some teachings that will inspire and motivate you to lead a peaceful life.
“Nothing goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.”
Pema Chodron
Here I leave you a compilation of the best Zen phrases to meditate pronounced by great characters such as Osho, Rumi, Thich Nhat Hanh, Lao-Tse, Shunryu Suzuki, the Dalai Lama and many more. Enjoy them!
Table of Contents
100 Zen proverbs and phrases to meditate on
Here are the best Zen quotes:
1. “Don’t let the behavior of others destroy your inner peace.”
Dalai Lama
2. “We sit together, the mountain and I, until only the mountain remains.”
Li Bai
3. “The flower falls, although we love it; and the weed grows, although we do not love it.”
Dogen Zenji
4. “You can never find what has never been lost.”
Zen proverb
5. “In fact, the truth of Zen is the truth of life, and life means living, moving, acting, not simply reflecting.”
Daisetsu-Suzuki
6. “Those who are awake live in a state of constant wonder.”
Buddha
7. “Zen is liberation from time. So that when we open our eyes and see clearly, it becomes obvious that there is no other time than this moment, and that the past and the future are abstractions without a concrete reality.”
Alan Wilson Watts
8. “The true miracle is not walking on water or walking on air, but simply walking on this earth.”
Thich Nhat Han
9. “The worst aggression against ourselves, the worst of all, is to remain ignorant for not having the courage and respect to treat ourselves with honesty and tenderness.”
Pema Chodron
10. v“If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present.”
Lao Tse
11. “Life is like getting on a ship that is about to set sail and sink into the ocean.”
Shunryu Suzuki
12. “Don’t chase, look for us, don’t ask, don’t hit, don’t demand, relax.”
OSHO
13. “Old friends leave, new friends appear. It’s like the days. An old day is gone, and a new day is coming. The important thing is that it has meaning: that it be a friend with meaning and a day with meaning.”
Dalai Lama
14. “All that we are is the result of what we think, The mind is everything. What we think is what we become.”
Buddha
15. “The meaning of spiritual life is to realize the truth. But you will never understand the spiritual life, or the truth, if you measure it by your own criteria.”
dainin katagiri
- Other interesting phrases: “ Environmental phrases ”
16. “Own the mind instead of being dominated by the mind.”
Zen proverb
17. “Better a word that calms the listener than a thousand absurd verses.”
Buddha
18. “When I let go of what I am, I become what I could be.”
Lao Tse
19. “How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.”
Wayne Dyer
20. “Respect life, venerate life. There is nothing holier than life, nothing more divine than life.”
OSHO
21. “When you look for it, you cannot find it.”
Zen proverb
22. “For a mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders.”
Lao Tse
23. “The strong will overcome an obstacle; the wise, all the way.”
Zen proverb
24. “The things I carry are my thoughts. They are my only weight. My thoughts determine whether I am free and light or heavy and burdened.”
kamal ravikant
25. “Every morning, we are born again. What we do today is what matters most.”
Buddha
26. “The best trick of the mind is the illusion that it exists.”
Marty Rubin
27. “The glass is neither half full nor half empty. The glass is just a glass and its contents are perpetually changing with your perception.”
Jennifer Sodin
28. “Move and the way will open.”
Zen proverb
29. “The answer is never “out there”. All the answers are “in there”, inside you, wanting to be discovered.”
Chris Prentiss
30. “The purpose of our lives is to be happy.”
Dalai Lama
31. “Stress is an ignorant state. With him you think everything is an emergency. Nothing is that important.”
Natalie Goldberg
32. “What determines the state of happiness or unhappiness of each person is not the event itself, but what the event means for that person.”
Chris Prentiss
33. “If you realize that you have enough, then you are truly rich.”
Lao Tse
34. “When we encounter a true tragedy in life, we can react in two ways: either lose hope and fall into self-destructive habits, or use the challenge to find our inner strength.”
Dalai Lama
35. “When the disciple is ready, the teacher appears.”
Zen proverb
36. “To live a purely altruistic life, one must not count anything as one’s own in the midst of plenty.”
Buddha
37. “Be patient. Wait for the mud to settle and the water to clear. He remains still until the right action arises by itself.”
Lao Tse
38. “Be nice whenever possible. It is always possible.”
Dalai Lama
39. “Even death should not be feared by one who has lived wisely.”
Buddha
40. “When you keep thinking that everything is someone else’s fault, you will suffer a lot. When you realize that everything springs only from yourself, you will learn both peace and joy.”
Dalai Lama
41. “Let go or be swept away.”
Zen proverb
42. “When something comes from within, when it is a part of you, you have no choice but to live it, to express it.” kamal ravikant
43. “Nature never rushes, yet everything takes place.”
Lao Tse
44. “The most important point is to accept yourself and stand on your two feet.”
Shunryu Suzuki
45. “It is easy to believe that we are waves and forget that we are also the ocean.”
Jon J Muth
46. “Having a mind open to everything and attached to nothing”
Tilopa
47. “If you are going to walk, walk. If you’re going to eat, eat. Live simple. Make your life a ritual.”
Zen proverb
48. “The dew like life fades; time speeds up quickly. In this short life of ours, avoid getting involved in superfluous things and simply study the Path.”
Dogen Zenji
49. “Act without expectations.”
Lao Tse
50. “The practice is this life, and the realization is this life and this life is revealed here and now.”
Maezumi Roshi
51. “The fundamental delusion of humanity is to suppose that I am here and you are out there.”
Yasutani Roshi
52. “Life begins where fear ends.”
OSHO
53. “Our sorrows and wounds heal only when we touch them with compassion.”
Buddha
54. “Love is the absence of judgment.”
Dalai Lama
55. “Flow with whatever happens and let your mind free. Accept what you’re doing.”
Chuang Tzu
56. “If we don’t know how to take care of ourselves and love ourselves, we can’t take care of the people we love. Loving yourself is the basis for loving another person.”
Thich Nhat Han
57. “A drop of dew on the grass reflects the full moon and the sky in its entirety.”
Dogen Zenji
58. “Being beautiful means being yourself. You do not need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.”
Thich Nhat Han
59. “A mountain does not give in to the wind, no matter how strong it is.”
Zen proverb
60. “Choose to be defeated in the presence of the wise than to stand out among fools.”
Dogen Zenji
61. “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities; but in the expert’s there are few.”
Shunryu Suzuki
62. “Seeking is suffering. Seeking nothing is bliss.”
Bodhidharma
63. “The man who moves mountains begins by moving small stones.”
Confucius
64. “We do not exist for the sake of something else. We exist for the sake of ourselves.”
Shunryu Suzuki
65. “In a mind clear as pure water, even the waves when they break, reflect its light.”
Dogen Zenji
66. “Understanding everything is forgiving everything.”
Buddha
67. “The man stands in his own shadow and wonders why it is dark.”
Zen proverb
68. “To receive everything, one must open their hands and give.”
Taisen Deshimaru
69. “Do not follow the idea of others, but learn to listen to the voice within you.”
Dogen Zenji
70. “Smile, breathe and go slowly.”
Thich Nhat Han
71. “This is the true secret of life: to be completely committed to what you do in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize that it’s a game.”
Zen proverb
72. “When you are present, you can allow the mind to be as it is without becoming entangled in it.”
Eckhart Tolle
73. “If you miss the present moment, you miss your date with life. That is very serious!”
Thich Nhat Han
74. “If you want to change the world, start with the next person who comes to you with a need.”
BD Schiers
75. “My experience is that the teachers we need most are the people we are living with right now.”
Byron Katie
76. “Just as a candle does not shine without fire, man cannot exist without a spiritual life.”
Buddha
77. “Guilt, regret , resentment, sadness, bitterness, frustration and all forms of not knowing how to forgive, are generated by living too much in the past and not enough in the present.”
Eckhart Tolle
78. “Throughout this life, you can never be sure you will live long enough to take another breath.”
Huang Po
79. “When one does something, you burn completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.”
Shunryu Suzuki
80. “Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world Earth rotates -. Slowly, evenly, unhurriedly into the future.”
Thich Nhat Han
81. “Food preparation is not just about yourself and others. It’s about everything!”
Shunryu Suzuki
82. “Things derive their being and nature by mutual dependence and are nothing in themselves.”
Nagarjuna
83. “Nothing exists completely alone. Everything is in relation to everything else.”
Buddha
84. “Heaven, earth and I are from the same root, the ten thousand things and I are from one substance.”
seng-chao
85. “We are here to awaken from our illusion of separation.”
Thich Nhat Han
86. “The practice of Zen is to forget the self in the act of uniting with something.”
Koun Yamada
87. “To study the way of the Buddha is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by the myriad things.”
Dogen Zenji
88. “Melt our attachment to self is the most powerful medicine to control mental and emotional imbalances.”
Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche
89. “Have great confidence in yourself, not of what you think you should be, but of who you are.”
Taizan Maezumi Roshi
90. “Accepting an idea as true without experiencing it is like painting a cake on paper and you will not be able to eat.”
suzuki roshi
91. “Trying to define yourself is like biting your own teeth”
Alan Watts
92. “Today you can decide to walk freely. You can decide to walk differently. You can walk like a free person, enjoying every step.”
Thich Nhat Han
93. “When an ordinary man obtains knowledge he is a sage; when a sage attains understanding he is an ordinary man.”
Zen proverb
94. “If we don’t take care of everything, then the peaceful mind will have nowhere to stay.”
Shenhui
95. “Power over others is weakness disguised as strength. The true power is within, and it is available to you now.”
Eckhart Tolle
96. “Only when you are extremely flexible and soft can you be extremely hard and strong.”
Zen proverb
97. “It all depends on you. You can go to sleep forever or you can wake up right now.”
OSHO
98. “When the mind is perfectly clear, what is it that we want.”
Byron Katie
99. “To follow the path, look to the teacher, follow the teacher, walk with the teacher, look through the teacher, become the teacher.”
Zen proverb
100. “You are a function of what the entire universe is doing in the same way that a wave is a function of what the entire ocean is doing.”
Alan Watts
Which of these Zen phrases was your favorite?
Attitude and mindset guide our hearts and drive the quality of life we live. Therefore, these “simple” but “revealing” messages are useful tools for reaching a calm, insightful, and introspective state of mind.
The basic principles of the Zen teachings are to relax and be at peace with oneself. As Osho said: “Zen is not effort. Effort is tension, effort is work, effort is to achieve something. Zen is not something to achieve. You are already that. Just relax, relax so deeply that you become a revelation to yourself.”
Do you have any other phrases to add to the list? Feel free to share it with us in the comments section below.