{"quotes":[{"text":"If your consciousness is without form, without quality, and without characteristics of any kind, would that not imply that the consciousness in every other being is also formless? And if they are all without form, how can you distinguish their consciousness from your own? What forms would you use to compare them? Isn’t the observing you exactly the same as the observing them?","author":"Joseph P. Kauffman","tags":["acceptance","appreciation","awakening","awareness","awe","bliss","brahman","buddhism","compassion","connection","consciousness","emotional","enjoy","enlightenment","evolution","existence","fear","forgiveness","freedom","god","gratitude","happiness","heart","hinduism","holographic-universe","illusion","journey","joy","life","love","maya","mental","mind","mystery","nature","nirvana","non-resistence","nonduality","now","oneness","path","peace","presence","reality","samadhi","self","self-acceptence","self-love","spirit","spiritual","spirituality","third-eye","truth","unity","universe","wisdom","within","zen"],"id":1788,"author_id":"Joseph+P.+Kauffman"},{"text":"Zen gives you tremendous dignity. There is no authority anywhere. Freedom is utter and ultimate.","author":"Osho","tags":["ity","dignity","freedom","zen"],"id":3488,"author_id":"Osho"},{"text":"We're lost where the mind can't find usutterly lost.","author":"Ikkyu","tags":["koan","poetry","zen"],"id":3607,"author_id":"Ikkyu"},{"text":"It's like you took a bottle of ink and you threw it at a wall. Smash! And all that ink spread. And in the middle, it's dense, isn't it? And as it gets out on the edge, the little droplets get finer and finer and make more complicated patterns, see? So in the same way, there was a big bang at the beginning of things and it spread. And you and I, sitting here in this room, as complicated human beings, are way, way out on the fringe of that bang. We are the complicated little patterns on the end of it. Very interesting. But so we define ourselves as being only that. If you think that you are only inside your skin, you define yourself as one very complicated little curlique, way out on the edge of that explosion. Way out in space, and way out in time. Billions of years ago, you were a big bang, but now you're a complicated human being. And then we cut ourselves off, and don't feel that we're still the big bang. But you are. Depends how you define yourself. You are actually--if this is the way things started, if there was a big bang in the beginning-- you're not something that's a result of the big bang. You're not something that is a sort of puppet on the end of the process. You are still the process. You are the big bang, the original force of the universe, coming on as whoever you are. When I meet you, I see not just what you define yourself as--Mr so-and- so, Ms so-and-so, Mrs so-and-so--I see every one of you as the primordial energy of the universe coming on at me in this particular way. I know I'm that, too. But we've learned to define ourselves as separate from it. ","author":"Alan W. Watts","tags":["zen"],"id":3821,"author_id":"Alan+W.+Watts"},{"text":"What happens to the drop of wineThat you pour into the sea?Does it remain itself, unchanged?It is as if it never existed.So it is with the soul: Love drinks it in,It is united with Truth,Its old nature fades away,It is no longer master of itself.The soul wills and yet does not will:Its will belongs to Another.It has eyes only for this beauty;It no longer seeks to possess, as was its wont--It lacks the strength to possess such sweetness.The base of this highest of peaksIs founded on nichil,Shaped nothingness, made one with the Lord.","author":"Jacopone da Todi","tags":["emptiness","light","zen"],"id":6249,"author_id":"Jacopone+da+Todi"},{"text":"Like wind-- In it, with it, of it. Of it just like a sail, so light and strong that, even when it is bent flat, it gathers all the power of the wind without hampering its course.Like light-- In light, lit through by light, transformed into light. Like the lens which disappears in the light it focuses.Like wind. Like light.Just this--on these expanses, on these heights.","author":"Dag Hammarskjöld","tags":["path","sword-sentiments","wind","zen"],"id":6914,"author_id":"Dag+Hammarskj%C3%B6ld"},{"text":"A balanced diet” is not so much about protein/fat/carbohydrate ratios. The real ratios to consider, at least for the typical American or European, are energy consumption/expenditure, pleasure/actual need, food/everything else.","author":"Darrell Calkins","tags":["asian-philosophy","buddhism","cobalt-saffron-retreat","cobaltsaffron","cobaltsaffron-retreat","comparative-religion","compassion","conscience","creativity","curiosity","darrell-calkins","darrell-calkins-cobalt-saffron","darrell-calkins-cobaltsaffron","darrell-calkins-retreat","darrell-calkins-seminar","emotional-health","evolution","happiness","humor","inspiration","intuition","martial-arts","metaphysics","mysticism","paradigm","physical-health","purpose","quantum-physics","stress-management","taoism","truth","well-being","zen"],"id":8879,"author_id":"Darrell+Calkins"},{"text":"Through transcendence of duality, we foster greater unity in our lives, which brings about inner peace and the sprouting of unconditional LOVE.","author":"Alaric Hutchinson","tags":["consciousness","duality","growth","inner-peace","inspirational","love","psychology","rise-above","self-esteem","spiritual","unconditional-acceptance","unconditional-love","unity","wisdom","zen"],"id":8885,"author_id":"Alaric+Hutchinson"},{"text":"When you blame, you open up a world of excuses, because as long as you're looking outside, you miss the opportunity to look inside, and you continue to suffer.","author":"Donna Quesada","tags":["buddhism","conscious-awareness","spirituality","yoga","zen"],"id":9299,"author_id":"Donna+Quesada"},{"text":"She was strangely unaware that she could look and see freshly for herself, as she wrote, without primary regard for what had been said before.","author":"Robert M. Pirsig","tags":["creative-process","creative-writing","writers","writing-process","zen"],"id":9823,"author_id":"Robert+M.+Pirsig"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":857,"pages":86,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}