Talk:Zen proverbs

From Wikiquote

I think putting an explanation of a zen proverb is kind of inapropriate.

I agree. In fact I think we stopped putting meanings against any quotations near the beginning of the project. Notes are sometimes needed to explain the context of a quote, but just rewording a quotation detracts rather than adds to it. Nanobug 14:29, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)

The words are interesting enough to attract attention and distract from a pure experience...is that why the (Chinese?) consider an interesting life to be a curse?

[edit] Sources?

• Please source your quotations. This is especially important in an article like this one, where dubious (or untraditional) zen aphorisms can pop up just about anywhere. (I am not saying we should not include untraditional quotations, but it would be nice to know where these are coming from).
• Any help in sourcing the quotations we already have would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.  :)> tartaruga 17:37, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
• I added the warning in bold to sort of counter the obvious problems with this article. I don't know what the correct tag would be, so I hope this is good enough for now. Eduardo Cuellar 08:25, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
• I changed the warning to be (hopefully) more formal and accurate. -- 24.225.128.134 20:10, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
  • It seems that a few of these 'proverbs' are quotes from Stargate SG-1. - Ricksal0224 01:47, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

• No the quotes from Stargate SG1 were taken from Zen Buddhist sayings and texts that have been around long before SG1. - zenpractioner

A good blogpost debunking some of these sayings. http://tim.2wgroup.com/blog/archives/001916.html (not by me)

Any source that the Stargate saying preceeded Stargate?

Wise men learn by other men's mistakes, fools by their own.

--H. G. Bohn [1]

The tighter you squeeze the less you have.

Thomas Merton, American Trappist Monk. Merton dabbled with Buddhism

http://thinkexist.com/quotation/the_tighter_you_squeeze-the_less_you_have/225623.html

Zen students must learn to waste time conscientiously.

Another Thomas Merton quote, which appears to have been altered. The original: "Waste time conscientiously with God" -- a rather un-Buddhist reference to the deity of Western monotheism.

A weed is a plant whose virtues are only waiting to be discovered.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, "What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered."

You do not wait for fulfilment, but brace yourself for failure.

Seems to have originated from Eugen Harrigel:

A Nazi party member who studied archery under a teacher who did not self-identify as a Zen master.

also, Zen Buddhists do not seek "the one" so "the ways to the one are as many as the lives of men" does not seem very 'Zen.' Source? --76.166.24.76 03:15, 13 October 2008 (UTC)