What is zen?

Try if you wish. But Zen comes of itself. True Zen shows in everyday living, CONSCIOUSNESS in action. More that any limited awareness, it opens every inner door to our infinite nature.

Instantly mind frees. How it frees! False Zen wracks brains as a fiction concocted by priests and salesmen to peddle their own wares.

Look at it this way, inside out and outside in: CONSCIOUSNESS everywhere, inclusive, through you. Then you can't help living humbly, in wonder.

Paul Reps in "Zen Flesh, Zen Bones"

Right presence of mind

This state, in which nothing definite is thought, planned, striven for, desired or expected, which aims in no particular direction and yet knows itself capable alike of the possible and the impossible, so unswerving is its power - this state, which is at bottom purposeless and egoless, was called by the Master truly 'spiritual'. It is in fact charged with spiritual awareness and is therefore also called 'right presence of mind'. This means that the mind or spirit is present everywhere, because it is nowhere attached to any particular place. And it can remain present because, even when related to this or that object, it does not cling to it by reflection and thus lose its original mobility. Like water filling a pond, which is always ready to flow off again, it can work its inexhaustible power because it is free, and be open to everything because it is empty. This state is essentially a primordial state, and its symbol, the empty circle, is not empty of meaning for him who stands within it.

Eugen Herrigel in "Zen in the Art of Archery" page 54

The sweetness of sugar

When Zen wants you to taste the sweetness of sugar it puts the required article in your mouth and no further words are said.

D.T.Suzuki

A Way of Liberation

A way of liberation can have no positive definition. It has to be suggested by saying what is not.

Alan Watts in "The Way of Zen" page 23