"The world is its own magic."

- Shunryu Suzuki

When I was first introduced to Zen, I really had no idea what I was getting myself into. I was in the middle of a sort of "path of self-discovery", let's call it, when Zen promptly hit me upside the head.

Two years before that, I started reading a book. This book largely became my life for those two years, and I consequently ended up reading it ten times more than any other book I had read in my entire life up until then. The book? Tao of Jeet Kune Do.

For those who don't know, Tao of Jeet Kune Do is the book Bruce Lee is most well known for outside of his films. He wrote a lot, and after his passing at the young age of 32 his family and students gradually released to the public various books and collections of his notes, but none received the notoriety that the very first collection, Tao of Jeet Kune Do, did.

Bruce Lee was nearly as much a philosopher and mystic as he was a martial artist. And Bruce Lee's philosophy on the martial arts was heavily influenced by Zen.

So much so that the first ten or fifteen pages of the Tao of Jeet Kune Do is dedicated solely to his favorite snippets from various Zen texts. And it's these very same pages that would be my first introduction to Zen.

I had read the Tao of Jeet Kune Do earlier in my life and was completely lost by this first section of the book, and likewise would be again when reading it years later. It might have been my first somewhat introduction to Zen, but at the time I had no idea what the heck I was reading. There was stuff like this:

Voidness is that which stands right in the middle between this and that. The void is all-inclusive, having no opposite - there is nothing which it excludes or opposes. It is living void because all forms come out of it and whoever realizes the void is filled with life and power and the love of all human beings.

As much as I loved the martial arts, it was this first section of the book which I considered most fascinating. I remember sitting down for long periods, contemplating what the various snippets from this section meant.

While at the time I didn't know what most of it meant, those moments of contemplation would later help me piece things together as I began to learn more about Zen.

You can't technically talk about Zen, or write about Zen, because true Zen can't be put into words. Ultimately, I can only point the way.

Leading people down the path, helping them discover the truth for themselves is part of what Buddhaimonia is about. I don't presume to be some magical guru that has special abilities or whom you should follow because "only I know the way".

You'll find the way in whispers of truth which you experience in your own everyday life. And as you follow that trail, you'll find greater peace and joy throughout each day.

Not a sense of relief though, that's shallow, I'm talking about a sense of peace that washes over every part of you and seems to bring everything into focus, even if at first just for a moment.

The below list of Zen quotes and Zen proverbs are bits of universal wisdom and insight which I've gathered over the past few years, mostly from teachers whom I have an immense amount of respect for. People such as:

Thich Nhat Hanh Shunryu Suzuki Alan Watts Dogen Zenji Eckhart Tolle Byron Katie Osho D. T. Suzuki Rumi Buddha

I've amassed these from years of reading books and articles (I love buddhismnow.com) and listening to a lot of audio. Sometimes it feels like I'm following an invisible trail, laid out step by step from past mystics and spiritual figures. It's like one big game of connecting the dots. And this is a trail that anyone can follow.

I narrowed this list down from some 250 original quotes to the essential, the ones which held the most significance for me and which I felt would bring the most value to you. I feel that even a single quote can have a profound effect. A quote can give us insight into something new or confirm something which we've felt or experienced.

As with all of Zen, the below Zen quotes aren't about beliefs or ideas, but universal wisdom which you can discover in your own daily life. And Zen is just one way to these universal truths, countless mystics and spiritual traditions have come to the very same insights independently that perfectly echo what Zen has discovered. This is why you'll see quotes from people other than notable Zen figures, such as Rumi and Martin Luther King Jr.

Zen is about pointing to the universal everyday wisdom all around you, about getting you to experience things purely "as they are", not about convincing you of some specific way of thinking, or about stamping some specific label on something.

Don't get caught up in thinking something is "Zen" or anything like that, these are simply bits of wisdom pointing to universal truth. Treat them as such and let them guide you towards a life of greater peace and joy.