Buddhist Quotes

Nyogen Senzaki

Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.

Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full, and then kept on pouring.

The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!"

"Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?"

Source:  101 Zen stories

Soko Morinaga

“Follow me,” directed the roshi, and he assigned me my first task: to clean the garden.  Together with this seventy-year-old master, I went out to the garden and started sweeping with a bamboo broom.  Zen temple gardens are carefully designed with trees planted to ensure that leaves will fall throughout the entire year; not only the maples in autumn but also the oaks and the camphors in spring regularly shed their foliage.  When I first arrived, in April, the garden was full of fallen leaves.

Master Chin Kung

The Cause of Our Chaotic World

Today’s societies in Taiwan and elsewhere in the world are rather abnormal, a phenomenon that has not been witnessed before either in the West or the East. Some Westerners have predicted that the end of the world will occur in 1999 and that Christ will return to earth for Judgement Day.

The 12th century master Geshe Ben was renowned for his goodness and integrity.

Once, while begging for alms, a family of devout Buddhists invited him to their home to be fed. He was so hungry that he found it difficult to wait while his hosts were elsewhere preparing the meal. To his complete shock he found himself stealing food from a jar when no-one was looking. Geshe Ben suddenly burst into loud cries of "Thief! Thief! I've caught you red-handed." 
His hosts rushed into the room to find him berating himself and threatening his hand with being cut off it ever behaved like that again.'

Source: A Tibetan teaching story