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

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.

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

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

The true path is not difficult; just avoid picking and choosing.

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

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.

What we call "I" is just a swinging door which moves when we inhale and when we exhale.

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

The mind has first to be attuned to the Unconscious.

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

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.

Whoever told you that practice and enlightenment are separate?

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.

Emptiness which is conceptually liable to be mistaken for sheer nothingness is in fact the reservoir of infinite possibilities.

Do not think you will necessarily be aware of your own enlightenment.

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

The basic teaching of Buddhism is the teaching of transiency, or change.

Intrinsically all living beings are Buddhas, just as ice and water are of the same substance.

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

Just to be alive is enough.

The most important point is to accept yourself and stand on your two feet.

The farther you enter into truth, the deeper it is.

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

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.

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

Technical knowledge is not enough. One must transcend techniques so that the art becomes an artless art, growing out of the unconscious.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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?

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

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

When you walk in the mist, you get wet.

As long as you seek for something, you will get the shadow of reality and not reality itself.

The treasure house within you contains everything, and you are free to use it. You don't need to seek outside.

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

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

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

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

The most important things in our practice are our physical posture and our way of breathing.

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.

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

The awareness that you are here, right now, is the ultimate fact.

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

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

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

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