Dr. Noel Bormann
Zen Quotes 2
ACTION
- We are so anxious to achieve some particular end that we never pay attention to the psycho-physical means whereby that end is to be gained. So far as we are concerned, any old means is good enough. But the nature of the universe is such that ends can never justify the means. On the contrary, the means always determine the end.
ALDOUS HUXLEY - The way of the sage is to act but not to compete.
LAO TZU - The great end of life is not knowledge but action.
THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY - Action should culminate in wisdom.
BHAGAVAD GITA - Action is the only reality; not only reality but morality as well.
ABBIE HOFFMAN - Inaction may be the highest form of action.
JERRY BROWN - Work is prayer. Work is also stink. Therefore stink is prayer.
ALDOUS HUXLEY - Doing work which has to be done over and over again helps us recognize the natural cycles of growth and decay, of birth and death, and thus become aware of the dynamic order of the universe. "Ordinary" work, as the root meaning of the term indicates, is work that is in harmony with the order we perceive in the natural environment.
FRITJOF CAPRA - Monotony is the law of nature. Look at the monotonous manner in which the sun rises. The monotony of necessary occupations is exhilarating and life-giving.
GANDHI - The best part of one's life is the working part, the creative part. Believe me, I love to succeed…However, the real spiritual and emotional excitement is in the doing.
GARSON KANIN - Enjoyment is not a goal, it is a feeling that accompanies important ongoing activity.
PAUL GOODMAN - People love chopping wood. In this activity one immediately sees results.
ALBERT EINSTEIN - I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one's business on earth, like the mail spider, who is killed by the female the moment he has succeeded in his courtship. I like a state of continual becoming, with a goal in front and not behind.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW - A priest from a rival Buddhist sect attended on of Master Bankei's (1622-1693) lectures. When the large audience welcomed Bankei with enthusiastic applause, the priest could not contain his jealousy: "You are a fraud," he cried out. "You may be able to fool these peasants and make them do whatever you say, but I have no respect for you. Can you make me do what you say?"
"Come here and I will show you," Bankei replied. As the priest approached the lectern Bankei said, "Come over to the left." The priest went to the left. "On second thought, come to the right." The priest went to the right. "Good," said Bankei, "you have obeyed me well. Now sit down and shut up."
- Do you know that disease and death must need overtake us, no matter what we are doing?… What do you wish to be doing when it overtakes you?…If you have anything better to be doing when you are so overtaken, get to work on that.
EPICTETUS - Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.
GEORGE ELIOT - Blessed is he who has found his work. Let him ask no other blessedness.
THOMAS CARLYLE - Originality and the feeling of one's own dignity are achieved only through work and struggle.
DOSTOEVSKY - If the building of a bridge does not enrich the awareness of those who work on it, then that bridge ought not to be built.
FRANTZ FANON - Put your heart, mind, intellect and soul even to your smallest acts. This is the secret of success.
SWAMI SIVANANDA - Whatsoever they hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, wither though goest.
ECCLESIASTES, 9:10 - When you do something, you should burn yourself completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.
SHUNRYU SUZUKI - Behavior influences consciousness. Right behavior means right consciousness. Our attitude here and now influences the entire environment: our words, actions, ways of holding and moving ourselves, they all influence what happens around us and inside us. The actions of every instant, every day, must be right…Every gesture is important. How we eat, how we put on our clothes, how we wash ourselves, how we go to the toilet, how we put our things away, how we act with other people, family, wife, work - how we are: totally, in every single gesture.
TAISEN DESHIMARU - Do every act of your life as if it were your last.
MARCUS AURELIUS - Flow with whatever may happen and let your mind be free: Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.
CHUANG TZU - The less effort, the faster and more powerful you will be.
BRUCE LEE - To know and to act are one and the same.
SAMURAI MAXIM - Try not to localize the mind anywhere, but let it fill up the whole body, let it flow throughout the totality of your being. When this happens you use the hands where they are needed, you use the legs or the eyes where they are needed, and no time or energy will go to waste.
TAKUAN (advice to a Samurai warrior) - Think with the whole body.
TAISEN DESHIMARU - Softness triumphs over hardness, feebleness over strength. What is more malleable is always superior over that which is immovable. This is the principle of controlling things by going along with them, of mastery through adaptation.
LAO TZU - He who has gained the secret of Aikido has the inverse in himself and can say, "I am the universe." When an enemy tries to fight with him, the universe itself, he has to break the harmony of the universe. Hence at the moment he has the mind to fight with me, he is already defeated.
MOREHEI UYESHIBA - You can learn from an ordinary bamboo leaf what ought to happen. It bends lower and lower under the weight of snow. Suddenly the snow slips to the ground without the leaf having stirred. Stay like that at the point of highest tension until the shot falls from you. So, indeed, it is: when the tension is fulfilled, the shot must fall, it must fall from the archer like snow from a bamboo leaf, before he even thinks it.
EUGEN HERRIGEL - Mushin: The total absence of discursive thought; a state in which the ego is forgotten and the individual is free to perform without concern for dualistic notions of good or bad, success or failure. Mushin is the essence of Zen martial arts.
- When archery is performed in a state of "no-thought" (mushin), which means the absence of all ego consciousness, the archer is free from inhibitions as he puts an arrow into his bow, stretches the string, lets his eye rest on the target and, when the adjustment is correct, lets the arrow go. There is no feeling of good or bad, accomplishment or failure. This is the "everyday mind" arising from "no-mind," and it is the essence of all the Zen martial arts to remain in this state, with no thought of life or death.
ANNE BANCROFT - It goes without saying that as soon as one cherishes the thought of winning the contest or displaying one's skill in technique, swordsmanship is doomed.
TAKANO SHIGEYOSHI - Sometimes you reach a point of being so coordinated, so completely balanced, that you feel that you can do anything - anything at all. At times like this I find I can run up to the front of the board and stand on the nose when pushing out through a broken wave; I can goof around, put myself in an impossible position and then pull out of it, simply because I feel happy. An extra bit of confidence like that can carry you through, and you can do things that are just about impossible.
MIDGET FARRELLY - Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.
G.K. CHESTERTON - I never blame myself when I'm not hitting. I just blame the bat and if it keeps up I change bats…After all, If I know it isn't my fault that I'm not hitting, how can I get mad at myself?
YOGI BERRA - There is a common experience in Tai Chi of seemingly falling through a hole in time. Awareness of the passage of time completely stops, and only when you catch yourself, after five or ten minutes, or five or ten seconds, is there the realization that for that period of time the world stopped.
TOM HORWITZ AND SUSAN KIMMELMAN - It's Zen-like when you're going good. You are the ball and the ball is you. It can do you no harm. A common bond forms between you and this white sphere, a bond based on mutual trust. The ball promises not to fly over too many walls after you have politely served it up to enemy hitters, and you assure it that you will not allow those same batters to treat the ball in a harsh or violent manner. Out of this trust comes a power that allows the pitcher to take control of what otherwise might be an uncontrollable situation.
BILL LEE - Concentration is not staring hard at something. It is not trying to concentrate.
W. TIMOTHY GALLWEY - A player's effectiveness is directly related to his ability to be right there, doing that thing, in the moment. All the preparation he may have put into the game - all the game plans, analysis of movies, etc. - is no good if he can't put it into action when game time comes. He can't be worrying about the past or the future or the crowd or some other extraneous event. He must be able to respond in the here and now.
JOHN BRODIE - Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire. The reality of your own nature should determine the speed. If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion. Then, when you're no longer thinking ahead, each footstep isn't just a means to an end but a unique event in itself.
ROBERT PIRSIG - You completely ignore everything and just concentrate. You forget about the whole world and you just…are part of the car and the track…It is very special feeling. You're completely out of this world. There is nothing like it.
JOCHEN RINDT - You're involved in the action and vaguely aware of it, but your focus is not on the commotion but on the opportunity ahead. I'd liken it to a sense of reverie - not a dreamlike state but the somehow insulated state that a great musician achieves in a great performance. He's aware of where he is and what he's doing, but his mind is on the playing of his instrument with an internal sense of rightness - it is not merely mechanical, it is not only spiritual; it is something of both, on a different plane and a more remote one.
ARNOLD PALMER - When I play my best golf, I feel as if I'm in a fog…standing back watching the earth in orbit with a golf club in your hands.
MICKEY WRIGHT - Without my telling it to, the right [-hand punch] goes, and when it hits, there is a good feeling…Something just right has been done.
INGEMAR JOHANSSON - I wasn't worried about a perfect game going into the ninth. It was like a dream. I was going on like I was in a daze. I never thought about it the whole time. If I'd thought about it I wouldn't have thrown a perfect game - I know I wouldn't
CATFISH HUNTER - When the identity is realized, I as swordsman see no opponent confronting me and threatening to strike me. I seem to transform myself into the opponent, and every movement he makes as well as every thought he conceives are felt as if they were my own and I intuitively…know when and how to strike him.
D.T. SUZUKI - The body moves naturally, automatically, unconsciously, without any personal intervention or awareness. But if we begin to use our faculty of reasoning, our actions become slow and hesitant. Questions arise, the mind tires, and the consciousness flickers and wavers like a candle flame in a breeze.
TAISEN DESHIMARU - In Judo, he who thinks is immediately thrown. Victory is assured to the combatant who is both physically and mentally nonresistant.
ROBERT LINSSEN - Thinking…is what gets you could from behind.
O.J. SIMPSON - How can you think and hit at the same time?
YOGI BERRA