Quotes by Zen Koan

Time to Die:
A Zen teacher had a rare and priceless teacup.
One day, his precocious student accidentally broke the cup.
Hearing the footsteps of his teacher,
the student held the pieces of the cup behind his back.
When the master appeared, he asked: "Why do people have to die?"
"This is natural," explained the teacher.
"Everything has to die and has just so long to live."
The student showed the shattered cup, saying,
"It was time for your cup to die."
- Traditional Zen Koan

The Sweetest Strawberry:
A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger.
He fled, the tiger after him.
Coming to a precipice,
he caught hold of the root of a wild vine
and swung himself over the edge.
The tiger sniffed at him from above.
Trembling, the man looked down to where,
far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him.
Only the vine sustained him.
Two mice, one white and one black,
little by little started to gnaw away the vine.
The man then saw a luscious strawberry near him.
Grasping the vine with one hand,
he plucked the strawberry with the other.
How sweet it tasted.
- Zen Koan

Overflowing Cup of Tea:
The Zen Master poured his visitor's teacup full, and then kept pouring.
The visitor watched until he could no longer restrain himself.
"It is overfull. No more will go in!"
"Like this cup," the Zen Master said,
"you are full of your own opinions and assumptions.
How can you learn truth until you first empty your cup?"
- Traditional Zen Koan

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- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The Moon Cannot Be Stolen:
A thief entered the little hut of a Zen Master,
but discovered there was nothing to steal.
The Zen Master discovered the thief.
"You have come a long way to visit me," he told the prowler,
"and you should not return empty-handed.
Please take my clothes as a gift."
The thief was bewildered,
but he took the clothes and slunk away.
The Zen Master sat naked, watching the moon.
"Poor fellow," he mused,
"I wish I could have given him this beautiful moon."
- Traditional Zen Koan

Find a time and place of solitude.
Look into the distance, and into the future.
Visualize the tomorrow you are going to build -
and begin to build that tomorrow, today.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Take time to play!
Ask for what you want.
Laugh.
Live loudly.
Be avid.
Learn a new thing.
Be Yourself!
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Do you feel stuck?
Whether in a project, a job, a relationship,
or some other situation,
there is a time for perseverance,
and a time for letting go and moving on.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The River of Life knows no obstacles.
The River can cut through solid rock - in its own time.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

This time, like all times, is a very good one,
if we but know what to do with it.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

I think we dream so we don't have to be apart for so long.
If we're in each other's dreams, we can be together all the time.
- A. A. Milne (Winnie-The-Pooh)

When you think you're out of time,
smile, and turn back the clock.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Once you have mastered time,
you will understand how true it is that
most people overestimate what
they can accomplish in a year -
and underestimate what
they can achieve in a decade!
- Tony Robbins

I must uphold my ideals,
for perhaps the time will come
when I shall be able to carry them out.
- Anne Frank

In order to discover new lands,
one must be willing to lose sight
of the shore for a very long time.
- Anonymous

The sum of wisdom is that
time is never lost that is devoted to work.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The dream you are living is your creation.
It is your perception of reality that you can change at any time.
- don Miguel Ruiz

Service is the rent we pay for being.
It is the very purpose of life,
and not something you do in your spare time.
- Marion Wright Edelman

Determine never to be idle.
No person will have occasion to complain
of the want of time who never loses any.
It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.
- Thomas Jefferson

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time,
for that is the stuff that life is made of.
- Benjamin Franklin

Look at everything as though you were seeing it
either for the first or last time.
Then your time on earth will be filled with glory.
- Betty Smith

The season of failure is the best time
for sowing the seeds of success.
- Paramahansa Yogananda

Instead of worrying about what people say of you,
why not spend time trying to accomplish
something they will admire.
- Dale Carnegie

Our greatest glory is not in never falling,
but in rising every time we fall.
- Confucius

This is no time for ease and comfort.
It is time to dare and endure.
- Winston Churchill

The wise man looks back into the past,
and does not grieve over what is far off,
nor rejoice over what is near;
for he knows that time is without end.
- Lao Tzu

Hatred does not cease through hatred at any time.
Hatred ceases through love.
This is an unalterable law.
- The Buddha

I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles;
but today it means getting along with people.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection,
not in books alone, but in every leaf in spring-time.
- Martin Luther

Our greatest weakness lies in giving up.
The most certain way to succeed
is always to try just one more time.
- Thomas A. Edison

A big part of letting go is recognizing
when it is time to stay in a situation
and when it is time to move on.
- Darren L. Johnson

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all of our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time
- T. S. Eliot

Never give up, for that
is just the place and time
that the tide will turn.
- Harriet Beecher Stowe

When I am getting ready to reason with a man,
I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself
and what I am going to say
and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.
- Abraham Lincoln

To everything there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die.
- Ecclesiastes 3:1

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority,
it is time to pause and reflect.
- Mark Twain

Put some distance between yourself
and whatever is concerning you.
Distance in space or time
always creates a new perspective.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Does thou love life? Then do not squander time;
for that's the stuff life is made of.
- Benjamin Franklin

Gardening is all about optimism.
I put a seed in the ground.
I consistently tend it,
confident I will see the results, in time,
of the nurture I have provided.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Your time is limited,
so don't waste it living someone else's life.
- Steve Jobs

The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling,
but in rising every time we fall.
- Nelson Mandela

That old law about "an eye for an eye" leaves everybody blind.
The time is always right to do the right thing.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

He who spends time regretting the past,
loses the present and risks the future.
- Quevedo

A wise man will make haste to forgive,
because he knows the true value of time,
and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.
- Samuel Johnson

There may be times when we are powerless
to prevent injustice, but there must never
be a time when we fail to protest.
- Elie Wiesel

A sloth lives a pretty good life, s-l-o-w-l-y.
Maybe we have something to learn from him.
Some days, being sloth-like may be just what you need
to avoid being consumed by urgency.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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May the world be kind to you, and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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Quotes by Zen Koan

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