Some believe that kensho is a word to describe temporary moments of enlightenment, when, for a few seconds, a person loses the sense of self and becomes totally absorbed in the mome...whoa, are those fresh donuts?!?!? Mmmmmm...donuts.

To desire is to suffer; thus, Nirvana will not come to those who want it. It will only occur to those who do not think about it. In essence, you've got to play it cool with Nirvana. You've got to make Nirvana want you.

You can find the peace within yourself through mediation. No, the twenty hours you spent sleeping off your Wild Turkey binge last night does not count toward your mediation time.

If you have full understanding, things are as they are; if you do not have full understanding, things are still as they are. Which really makes the case for just not giving a damn.

Relinquish all attachments.

When relinquishing your attachments to money and other valuable assets please forward them to me and I will dispose of them in an enlightened manner.

See the turkey. Be the turkey. You are the turkey. Which, if you think about it, is probably not that great a thing as you'd be naked and shoved in a hot oven, and you haven't had that happen since your college days.

Do not permit the events of your daily life to bind you, yet do not withdraw from them. Unless someone is shooting at you. Then you may withdraw. Of course, if someone is shooting at you in your daily life, then you may have bigger problems than trying to achieve Nirvana.

You must seek without seeking. You must hear without listening. You must move while standing still. You  must, uhmmm...where was I going with all of this?

Before enlightenment, I chopped wood and carried water.
After enlightenment, I chopped wood and carried water.
Hey, wait a second, that doesn't sound like much of a deal, does it?

We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want.

I can see that my pot is more empty than your pot. You're just not trying. Or are you not not trying? Very good.

Only in silence can we truly hear. Unless you have tinnitus, then there's always that noise in your ears, like sound of the ocean when you hold a seashell up to your ear, so even when it's totally quiet it still sounds noisy to you. Good luck trying to truly hear anything if you've got tinnitus.

Nothing on earth can overcome an absolutely nonresistant person. Although it is fun to taser people like that.

A Zen master and his disciple were walking along a trail in the woods. A dog crossed their path. “Master,” the disciple asked, “ does even a dog have the Buddha spirit?”
The Zen master replied, “I like the Bears to cover the spread against the Dolphins tonight.” The student stopped in his tracks, his eyes closed, and a smile came to his lips. Now he knew enlightenment.

Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek instead the brand of slippers they wore.

The mind should be as a mirror. Then again, do you really want to see your thoughts reflected back at you? Yes, those thoughts. Perhaps the mind would be better off as a non-reflective surface.

To overcome your misery you must first embrace your misery. And you are miserable, aren't you? I thought so.

One moon reflects in every pool of water, in every pool the one moon. If you see two moons, you may be on the wrong planet. If you see three moons, you may be on the wrong medications.

The road to Nirvana does not pass through Cleveland.

Zen logic: To be human is to experience dhukka, or suffering. All humans suffer. Thus, all humans are Cubs fans.

The path to enlightenment is closed in honor of Veterans Day. It will reopen tomorrow morning.

Each one of us has full understanding. Except for algebra. I still don't understand algebra. 7y=210. How can you multiply a letter and a number and come up with another number? That just doesn't make any sense.

I think I need to go meditate now.

Only in the stillness of doing nothing am I truly doing something. At least that's what I tell my wife when she wants me to do something.

If a tree falls in the forest, and there isn't a crew from one of those cable TV shows about loggers to film it, does the tree still make a sound?

Man can learn Zen from nature. The birds of the sky have no clocks to adjust, nor do the animals of land and sea. For them, time is always now. Except for the Panamanian sloth, which is so slow, for them there in no now, there is only yesterday.

To know Zen, know the Buddha. But for crying out loud, stop rubbing his belly, that's really beginning to tick him off.

All answers are within yourself. Do you see them? They're right over there. No, a little to the left. Yes, behind the spleen. That's it. See them? Good.

Where there is less talk, you will find more rock.

When you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness. And in your next life you will have an innate ability to recite at will all the key lines of dialogue from "Caddyshack." So you've got that going for you. Which is nice.

The lies of the politician are as the leavings of a dog; each is unique to the individual entity, but all pretty much smell the same.

Nothing is everything.

Everything is never nothing though, and a little bit of something is almost always better than a whole lot of nothing. However, sometimes it's better to have nothing than to have something you really don't want.