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

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.

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

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

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

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

The obstacle is the path.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

Enlightenment is intimacy with all things.

If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?

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

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

The ocean does not reject any water; therefore it is great. The mountain does not select its stones; therefore it is great.

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

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

Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When you walk in the mist, you get wet.

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

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

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

The menu is not the meal.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 real secret of the arts: always be a beginner.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

To live is enough.

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

The basic idea of Zen is to come in touch with the inner workings of our being, and to do this in the most direct way possible, without resorting to anything external or superadded.

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

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

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

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

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