Zen Proverbs and Sayings

• Nothing on earth can overcome an absolutely nonresistant person.
  
  
• When an ordinary man gains knowledge, he is a sage; when a sage gains understanding, he is an ordinary man.
  
  
• Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought. – Basho
  
  
• Even a good thing isn't as good as nothing. – Chien-ju
  
  
• Sitting peacefully doing nothing Spring comes and the grass grows all by itself.
  
  
• Where there is great doubt, there will be great awakening; small doubt, small awakening, no doubt, no awakening.
  
  
• The instant you speak about a thing, you miss the mark.
  
  
• If you're attached to anything, you surely will go far astray.
  
  
• Only the crystal-clear question yields a transparent answer.
  

• Life is the only thing worth living for.
  
  
• Better to sit all night than to go to bed with a dragon.
  
  
• If you understand, things are just as they are; if you do not understand, things are just as they are.
  
  
• When you get to the top of the mountain, keep climbing.
  
  
• The mind should be as a mirror.
  
  
• Everyday life is the way.
  
  
• Great Faith. Great Doubt. Great Effort. – The three qualities necessary for training.
  
  
• If you do not get it from yourself, Where will you go for it?
  
  
• Do not permit the events of your daily life to bind you, but never withdraw yourself from them.
  
  
• One moon shows in every pool, in every pool the one moon.
  
  
• Everything the same; everything distinct. – Chien-ju
  
  
• As soon as you sense any lingering or obstruction, all of it is false imagining. Just make your mind clean and free, like space, like a mirror, like the sun in the sky. ~ Yuan Wu