There are different pathways - be it Zen, tantra, karma yoga, or jnana yoga. Different ways have been devised to do the same thing for different types of people according to their temperament.
The entrance into Zen is the grasping of one's essential nature. It is absolutely impossible, however, to come to a clear understanding of our essential nature by any intellectual or philosophical method. It is accomplished only by the experience of self-realization through zazen.
The emphasis is on meditation in Tantric Zen. The experience of meditation in formal practice, zazen, where you're sitting down and meditating and concentrating.
Old Zen is the way of nothingness, the way of having a good time.
I had been reading this book about Zen Koan philosophy, and it was talking about the right here and the right now, and how important it is, and I was really trying to get there in my life.
Everything was coming together by coming apart. . . It is the most difficult Zen practice to leave people to their destiny, even though it's painful - just loving them, and breathing with them, and distracting them in a sweet way, and laughing with them. . . if something was not my problem, I probably did not have the solution.
What is Tantric Zen? Well, I don't think I can give you a straight answer, since I don't happen to be a very straight Zen master.
Zen is a very quick path. Zen is the path of meditation. The word Zen means emptiness or fullness, meditation. Meditation is the quickest path to enlightenment.
To be a good Zen Buddhist it is not enough to follow the teaching of its founder; we have to experience the Buddha's experience.
Zen is the way of splitting the self again and again, untilt there is nothing left.
The Zen master walks in his garden, alone. There is no traffic there. There is no shopping there. There are only the flowers.
Zen wants us to acquire an entirely new point of view whereby to look into the mysteries of life and the secrets of nature. This is because Zen has come to the definite conclusion that the ordinary logical process of reasoning is powerless to give final satisfaction to our deepest spiritual needs.
Zen is the unsymbolization of the world.
If the Zen master sees that it will cause a person to progress, he will ask that person to do a task. The task is charged with power if it's performed properly. It's a koan between yourself and the Zen Master.
There is no letter of the law to follow in Zen. There is a lot of etiquette, but there are no rules.
The three elements of creativity are thus: loving, knowing, and doing - or heart, mind, and hands - or, as Zen Buddhist teaching has it; great faith, great question, and great courage.
Zen is a special transmission outside the Canonical Scriptures; it does not depend upon texts.
In Tantric Zen, career, relationships, the type of insurance you have - all things are part of your evolution, your awareness, your experience of the suchness of existence.
I consider writing a legitimate Zen practice.
Zen is very easy! It's like touching your nose when you wash your face in the morning!