Zen Pencils

Zen Pencils is great.  

Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes and meditation in cute pixels.

Reminders about life in simple manner.

Want some nice, zen, thought-provoking colored pencil art?  

Welcome.  

Check out this website.  

You should also check out his Store.

It's made of glory and also happy philosophy.  Deep and yet marvelously light.  

The combination of the two is practically perfect.  The cartoons are simple and cute, but the messages are important and potentially life-altering.

I have liked every entry from here that I have seen, and I highly recommend signing up for his email list, because then, they will land right in your inbox.  Plus, you get free poster downloads and everyone and their mom likes free stuff. 

Reasons to be happy.  Reasons to persevere.  Reasons to work hard.  Reasons to not worry.

Reasons to feel big.  Reasons to feel small.

Reasons to work hard and achieve greatness.

Reasons to go out there and take on the world.  

Every time I look at this website, I want to inspire everyone I know.  I want to achieve greatness.  I want to world to be a better place.  I want everyone to feel happiness and safety through the powers of their own mind.

And that is pretty damn amazing.

Well played, Zen Pencils.  Well.  Played.

Note: As this post goes live, I am sitting in the airport waiting to board a plane to Maine.  Woot.  Anyways, there might or might not be updating much this week.  Of course, you aren't used to me updating because I just neglected to update for six monthes but hey, I thought I'd throw that out there.  

Inspiration Fridays: Zen

Zen.  I't s a school of Buddhism that teaches meditation and relaxation to reach enlightenment, happiness, and contentment.  More importantly, it teaches the necessity of personal experience as a means of acquiring wisdom.  Theories are less important, and walking out the door and really living will lead you to happiness, according to Zen.  While I believe that theoretical study is, in fact, important as well, I do believe that without exploration and experience, it is impossible to say that you are a master of something. 

 For example, I knew a lot about London and English culture before I moved to London for five monthes last year. I wouldn't have told you that I was an expert, but I probably would have told you that I generally knew what I was talking about when it came to British Customs and such.  Of course, I arrived and realized that I was a complete idiot, and knew very little.  By being there, and experiencing it first hand, I learned.  Now, I know better than to say that I know a lot about English culture.  I know better than many Americans, but I still know that I have much to learn.

Zen also recommends discovering these experiences mentally, through meditation.  Dreaming, thinking, and creating circumstances to understand them.  I can't agree with that enough.  Stella Adler Studio of Acting, where I went to school and now work, teaches imagination as a means to understand the situation of a character while acting.  Zen also emphasizes finding the beauty in the world around you to help lead you to enlightenment, which, hilariously enough, is kind of the point of this blog.  If I was more relaxed all of the time,  I would crack a joke here about how I've been a secret Zen master all along. However, I'm not a particularly relaxed person.  I'm better than I used to be, but I can be rather tightly wound at my worst moments.  Most importantly, though, I am working on it.

In any case, symbols of Zen are pretty well known.  Buddha statues, Zen gardens, Green Tea, lotuses, cherry blossom, lanterns, and tea houses.   That's not any kind of an official list, that's what I associate with Zen.  It's a pretty big concept, but here are some images I have found online to share with you.

May they bring you enlightenment!

All Posters

Euart on Flickr

Puerto Vallarta

Powerful Mind

The Good Life

Sharon Carr Studio

Utilitarianism

Inspire Belle

PS.  Yes... I realise that I posted this on a Saturday, and not a Friday.  It was meant to auto-post yesterday... and it didn't work.  Oops.

Tranquility

Koi in the River in the Yard of The Alamo

San Antonio, Texas, USA

Like this?  Check out Spring and Better Than Candles.

Really like this?  Buy this print here.

I added a cool quiz to the side of the page!  Vote for your favourite country (out of those choices) or the one you would most like to visit.  They are all ones that I have been to, or am going to visit in the near future.  However, they are not all of the countries that I have seen.  I just find it interesting to know what you're thinking, and maybe you do too.
ALSO I just added this thing called bloglovin.  You can now follow this blog through blogspot, blogger, google, or bloglovin.  So now you will always know when this blog is updating.  Yay!  Here's the link: Follow my blog with bloglovin.
ONE MORE THING- I created a facebook group for Travel and Toile.  To join, or for more updates, go to The Travel and Toile Facebook Group .
Thanks everyone!