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

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

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

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

Whoever told you that practice and enlightenment are separate?

When you walk in the mist, you get wet.

What Zen wants us to do is to acquire an entirely new point of view whereby to look into the mysteries of life and the secrets of nature.

This very body is the Buddha. And this very earth the lotus paradise.

Your own treasure house contains everything you need; why search outside?

The eye with which I see Buddha is the same eye with which Buddha sees me.

The state of mind that exists when you sit in the right posture is, itself, enlightenment.

Enlightenment is intimacy with all things.

There is no need to have a deep understanding of Zen. Even though you read much Zen literature, you must read each sentence with a fresh mind.

The mind is like a well-forged sword - it adapts to all situations.

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.

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

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.

To see nothing is to perceive the Way, and to understand nothing is to know the Dharma.

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

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

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

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

The dharma wheel turns from the beginning. There is neither excess nor deficiency. The whole universe is moistened with nectar, and the truth is ready to harvest.

Even if you speak of 'understanding,' this understanding is not a matter of knowledge. It is what fills the entire body and mind.

Should you desire the great tranquility, prepare to sweat white beads.

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

The real secret of the arts: always be a beginner.

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.

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

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

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

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

When both body and mind are at peace, all things appear as they are: perfect, complete, lacking nothing.

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

Without accepting the fact that everything changes, we cannot find perfect composure.

When dharma fills your body and mind, you realize that something is missing.

When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point.

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.

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.

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

Nothing we see or hear is perfect. But right there in the imperfection is perfect reality.

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

Only when you can be extremely pliable and soft can you be extremely hard and strong.

The mind has first to be attuned to the Unconscious.

This is the real secret of life -- to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.

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

Without darkness, there is no light. Without the path, there is no arrival.

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

The Buddha and all sentient beings are nothing but expressions of the one mind. There is nothing else.

Zen teaches nothing; it merely enables us to wake up and become aware. It does not teach, it points.

The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.

We should find perfect existence through imperfect existence.

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

To live is enough.

Zazen is not step-by-step meditation. Rather it is simply the easy and pleasant practice of a Buddha, the realization of the Buddha's Wisdom.

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

Nothing we see or hear is perfect. But right there in the imperfection is perfect reality.

At the bottom of great doubt lies great awakening. If you doubt fully, you will awaken fully.

In Zen there must be satori; there must be a general mental upheaval which destroys the old accumulations of intellection and lays down the foundation for a new life.

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