The practice of Zen mind is beginner's mind. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind there are few.

Enlightenment is intimacy with all things.

The truth of Zen is the truth of life, and life means to live, to move, to act, not merely to reflect.

When you listen to someone, you should give up all your preconceived ideas and your subjective opinions.

When you walk in the mist, you get wet.

In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few.

If you forget yourself, you become the universe.

The contradiction so puzzling to the ordinary way of thinking comes from the fact that we have to use language to communicate our inner experience, which in its very nature transcends linguistics.

A flower falls, even though we love it; and a weed grows, even though we do not love it.

The obstacle is the path.

Life is like stepping onto a boat which is about to sail out to sea and sink.

Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water. The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken.

Birth and death are neither two things nor one thing. Life is not an appearance, death is not a disappearance.

When you see forms or hear sounds fully engaging body-and-mind, you intuit dharma intimately.

When you practice zazen you should not try to attain anything. You should just sit in the complete calmness of your mind and not rely on anything.

Zen is not necessarily against words, but it is well aware of their limitations.

Just as parents care for their children, you should bear in mind the whole universe.

When you understand one thing through and through, you understand everything. When you try to understand everything, you will not understand anything.

When you are you, Zen is Zen. Big mind is just big mind.

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

Time passes unhindered. When we make ourselves better, we make the world better.

The silence between the notes is as important as the notes themselves.

Buddhas and ordinary beings are not two. Enlightenment and delusion are not different paths.

The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the expert, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all the possibilities.

In the spiritual world there are no time divisions such as the past, present and future; for they have contracted themselves into a single moment of the present where life quivers in its true sense.

Moment after moment, completely devote yourself to listening to your inner voice.

The best way to control people is to encourage them to be mischievous. Then they will be in control in a wider sense.

The more you suffer the deeper grows your character, and with the deepening of your character you read the more penetratingly into the secrets of life.

Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.

The mind of the past is ungraspable; the mind of the future is ungraspable; the mind of the present is ungraspable.

To be in harmony with the wholeness of things is not to have anxiety over imperfection.

When the mind is ready to understand, the truth will come to meet it.

Zen is a way of life, not a theory or a piece of knowledge to be stored away in our minds.

The idea of Zen is to catch life as it flows. There is nothing extraordinary or mysterious about Zen. I raise my hand; I take a book from the other side of the desk; I hear the boys playing ball outside my window; I see the clouds blown away beyond the neighboring wood: all these I do in Zen.

Who would then deny that when I am sipping tea in my tearoom I am swallowing the whole universe with it and that this very moment of my lifting the bowl to my lips is eternity itself transcending time and space?

Where there is great doubt, there is great awakening; small doubt, small awakening; no doubt, no awakening.

The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in one dewdrop on the grass.

Everybody has the light of Buddha within, but they don't look for it.

The instant you speak about a thing, you miss the mark.

When you do something, you should burn yourself completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.

Meditation in the midst of activity is a thousand times superior to meditation in stillness.

If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything.

If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?

Not knowing how near the truth is, we seek it far away.

The practice of Zen is forgetting the self in the act of uniting with something.

To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things.

To live – is that not enough? To love – is that not everything?

The true purpose of Zen is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes.

The true person is not anyone in particular. But like the deep blue color of the limitless sky, it is everyone, everywhere in the world.

Zen in its essence is the art of seeing into the nature of one's own being, and it points the way from bondage to freedom.

The role of Zen is neither to stand above life nor to run away from it, but to face it with a spirit of determination.

Our practice cannot be perfect, but without being discouraged by this, we should continue it. This is the secret of practice.

Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.

The color of the mountains is Buddha's body; the sound of running water is his great speech.

The superior person is like water, bringing benefit to all without competing.

The archer ceases to be conscious of himself as the one who is engaged in hitting the bull's-eye which confronts him. This state of unconsciousness is realized only when, completely empty and rid of the self, he becomes one with the perfecting of his technical skill.

Zen proposes its solution by directly appealing to facts of personal experience and not to book-knowledge.

To what shall I compare this life? It is like a boat that left at dawn, leaving no trace.

To carry yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion. That myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening.

When you realize how perfect everything is, you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky.