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

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

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

Each of you is perfect the way you are... and you can use a little improvement.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

Instead of having a deep understanding of the teaching, we need a strong confidence in our teaching, which says that originally we have Buddha nature.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The true understanding is that the practice itself is enlightenment.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The obstacle is the path.

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

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.

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

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

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

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

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 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.

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

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

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

When you walk in the mist, you get wet.

In the spring, hundreds of flowers; in autumn, a harvest moon; in the summer, a refreshing breeze; in winter, snow will accompany you. If useless things do not hang in your mind, any season is a good season for you.

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

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

If you forget yourself, you become the universe.

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

The mind has first to be attuned to the Unconscious.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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