Franz Kafka Quotes

If clearness about things produces a fundamental despair, a fundamental despair in turn produces a remarkable clearness or even playfulness about ordinary matters.

Zen is a kind of unlearning. It teaches you how to drop that which you have learned, how to become unskillful again, how to become a child again, how to start existing without mind again, how to be here without any mind.

Faith is easy; I think people complicate it.

When the faith is strong enough, it is sufficient just to be. It's a journey towards simplicity, towards quietness, towards a kind of joy that is not in time. It's a journey that has taken us from primary identification with our body and our psyche, on to an identification with God, and ultimately beyond identification.

By taking to the road, we free ourselves of baggage, both physical and psychological. We walk back to our original condition, to our best selves.

The career of a sage is of two kinds: He is either honored by all in the world, Like a flower waving its head, Or else he disappears into the silent forest.

The true mystic is always both humble and compassionate, for she knows that she does not know.

I have a notion that if you are going to be spiritually curious, you better not get cluttered up with too many material things.

Sometimes people can only imagine that I live a glamorous life 24/7, which I don't. I just like the most natural and simple things. That's what makes me happy.

It is the childlike mind that finds the kingdom.

I don't have a circus around me, and that's a choice. I like to be on Planet Earth as much as possible.

I'm not a showoff. My happiness comes from very basic and simple things.

I try to keep my life fairly simple. Being humble is really important.

At the Cruiserweight Classic finale, I said... I don't know if people had looked it up, or if they had heard it before, but it was an old Zen proverb. 'Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, you chop wood, carry water.' It can be interpreted a lot of ways, but for the most part it's about staying in the moment.

The Great Way has no gate. Clear water has no taste. The tongue has no bone. In complete stillness, a stone girl is dancing.

No armies are needed, no weapons are needed, no nations are needed, no religions are needed. All that is needed is a little meditativeness, a little silence, a little love, a little more humanity... just a little more, and existence will become fragrant with something so totally unique and new that you will have to find a new category for it.

No more materialism, no more this egoism, I must become spiritual.

Zen is everywhere.... But for you, Zen is right here.

The less there is of you, the more you experience the sublime.

The secret to enlightenment is to lighten up. Whether you are talking rock or women, all there.

If you want to study Zen, you should forget all your previous ideas and just practice zazen and see what kind of experience you have in your practice. That is naturalness.

The Dalai Lama visited the White House and told the President that he could teach him to find a higher state of consciousness. Then after talking to Bush for a few minutes, he said, 'You know what? Let's just grab lunch.'

Zen is a totally different kind of religion. It brings humanness to religion. It is not bothered about anything superhuman; its whole concern is how to make ordinary life a blessing.

Meditation simplifies our outer life and energizes our inner life. Meditation gives us a natural and spontaneous life, a life that becomes so natural and spontaneous that we cannot breathe without being conscious of our own divinity.

Sometimes we are clarified and calmed healthily, as we never were before in our lives, not by an opiate, but by some unconscious obedience to the all-just laws, so that we become like a still lake of purest crystal and without an effort our depths are revealed to ourselves. . . .