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

Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.

The world is its own magic.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

Wherever you are, you are one with the clouds and one with the sun and the stars you see. You are one with everything. That is more true than I can say, and more true than you can hear.

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

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 fundamental delusion of humanity is to suppose that I am here and you are out there.

The zazen I speak of is not meditation practice. It is simply the dharma gate of joyful ease.

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

When you walk in the mist, you get wet.

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

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

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

When walking, just walk. When sitting, just sit. Above all, don't wobble.

If you want to climb a mountain, begin at the top.

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

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

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.

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

In a mind clear as still water, even the waves, breaking, are reflecting its light.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Enlightenment is intimacy with all things.

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

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.

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

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

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

Leave your front door and your back door open. Allow your thoughts to come and go. Just don't serve them tea.

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.

The menu is not the meal.

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.

The true understanding is that the practice itself is enlightenment.

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

The mind is the root from which all things grow. If you can understand the mind, everything else is included.

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

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

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.

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

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