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

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

All beings by nature are Buddha, as ice by nature is water. Apart from water there is no ice; apart from beings, no Buddha.

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

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

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.

Life is an art, and like perfect art it should be self-forgetting.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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.

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

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

The time of the past becomes the present, the time of the present becomes the future, the time of the future becomes the present, and the time of the present becomes the past.

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

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.

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

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 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.

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

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

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

The obstacle is the path.

To study the Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things.

The way is basically perfect. It is not a matter of practice or enlightenment.

Where is the place that your original face has not yet emerged?

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

The mind has first to be attuned to the Unconscious.

Just to be alive is enough.

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

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

Personal experience is everything in Zen. No ideas are intelligible to those who have no backing of experience.

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

Treat every moment as your last. It is not preparation for something else.

We should find perfect existence through imperfect existence.

Whoever told you that practice and enlightenment are separate?

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

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.

The purpose of studying Buddhism is not to study Buddhism, but to study ourselves.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Do not follow the ideas of others, but learn to listen to the voice within yourself.

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.

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

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

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

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