Bodhidharma

Not thinking about anything is Zen. Once you know this, walking, sitting, or lying down, everything you do is Zen.

Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.

When the student is ready the teacher will appear.

To be calm is the highest achievement of the self.

God has no religion.

I’m essentially agnostic. I don’t have a problem with God. I have a problem with religion. I’ve chosen to live my life without the certainties of religious faith. I think they’re dangerous. Music is something that gives my life value and spiritual solace.

I’m a bit superstitious about certain things, like what shoes to wear. If I wear the wrong shoes, the whole day may go wrong. Or if I don’t get to the bottom of the stairs before the door closes – stupid little things like that. Then I also have all the normal ones, like don’t walking under ladders and so on.

The clergyman is expected to be a kind of human Sunday.

[On religion:] Wasn’t it invented by man for a kind of solace? It’s as though he had said, ‘I’ll make me a nice comfortable garment to shut out the heat and the cold,’ and then it ends by becoming a strait-jacket.

I once wanted to become an atheist, but I gave up – they have no holidays.

Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water.

Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool.

The concept known as bal tashchit – ‘Do no destroy’ – has a special significance in Jewish tradition…We are constantly being warned in our faith that the capricious, thoughtless, wasteful destruction of the elements and creatures of the earth is wrong…We should remind ourselves daily of our responsibility to all aspects of creation.

Jesus tapped me on the shoulder and said, Bob, why are you resisting me? I said, I’m not resisting you! He said, You gonna follow me? I said, I’ve never thought about that before! He said, When you’re not following me, you’re resisting me.

The Christian ethic played an essential part in my upbringing.

Most people think that faith means believing something; oftener it means trying something, giving it a chance to prove itself.