The Involuntary Zen Master Series

[Alberto]

OK, if we're really listening, everybody is a teacher.

But this thread aims to collect sayings that remind us -even when our attention is weak- that wisdom has no exclusive contract with buddhists, religious systems, or real characters for that matter. Lemme start with these 3:

"Do not wait for the last judgement. It takes place every day"
Albert Camus, great teacher of cause and effect

"I yam what I yam"
Popeye Roshi

And a great lesson in impermanence from the latter-day-ancestor, Yogi Berra:
"The future ain't what it used to be"

[Eika]

"Cloquet hated reality but realized it was still the only place to get a good steak." -- Woody Allen

"I feel a whole lot more like I do now than I did a minute ago." -- Roy Hart (my grandfather)

"The truth of a thing is the feel of it, not the think of it." -- Stanley Kubrick


-Bill

[lora]

"get your bloated nothingness out of the way."

emmerson

many blessings,
lora

[Fuken]

Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise.
- Bertrand Russell

One of the most obvious facts about grownups to a child is that they have forgotten what it is like to be a child.
- Randall Jarrell

Gassho,
Jordan

[Aswini]

"Losing all hope was freedom." Narrator

"You had to give it to him. He had a plan. And it started to make sense in a "Tyler" sort of way. No fear, no distractions. The ability to let that which does not matter…truly slide." Narrator

Tyler Durton alter ego:

"Fuck Martha Stewart! Martha's polishing the brass on the Titanic! It's all going down, man! So, fuck off with your sofa units and your Strinne green stripe patterns. I say never be complete, I say stop being perfect, I say let's evolve, and let the chips fall where they may."

"The things you own, they end up owning you."

"Reject the basic assumption of civilization, especially the importance of material possessions!"

"You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis. We are the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world."

"Self-improvement is masturbation. Now, self-destruction…"

"You have to consider the possibility that God does not like you. He never wanted you. In all probability, he hates you. This is not the worst thing that can happen. We don't need Him. Fuck damnation, man, fuck redemption! If we are God's unwanted children, so be it!"

"First you have to give up, first you have to know—not fear, know that someday you're gonna die."

"You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everything else"

Fight Club - http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fight_Club_%28film%29 (http://http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fight_Club_%28film%29)

[Tb]

Hi everybody.

Here's a few qoutes from a master, YODA.

Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes. Even between the land and the ship.

Do or do not... there is no try.

Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

Always in motion is the future.

Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force. Mourn them do not. Miss them do not. Attachment leads to jealously. The shadow of greed, that is.

You will find only what you bring in.

Yes, a Jedi's strength flows from the Force. But beware of the dark side. Anger, fear, aggression; the dark side of the Force are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight. If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will, as it did Obi-Wan's apprentice.

Happens to every guy sometimes this does.

Always two there are, a master and an apprentice.

May the Force be with you.
Tb

[Chris H]

I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you Nobody too?
Then there's a pair of us.
Don't tell. They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public — like a frog —
To tell ones name the live long day
To an admiring bog.


Emily Dickinson Sensei

[Al]

"Your emotions are not a conspiracy against you."
- My wife

:D