This is the real secret of life -- to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.

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

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

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

The dharma wheel turns from the beginning. There is neither excess nor deficiency. The whole universe is moistened with nectar, and the truth is ready to harvest.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.

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

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.

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?

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

A flower falls, even though we love it; and a weed grows, even though we do not love it.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

At the bottom of great doubt lies great awakening. If you doubt fully, you will awaken fully.

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

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

The mind has first to be attuned to the Unconscious.

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

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

The true understanding is that the practice itself is enlightenment.

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

Just as parents care for their children, you should bear in mind the whole universe.

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

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

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

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.

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

The menu is not the meal.

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

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

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

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.

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

The eye with which I see Buddha is the same eye with which Buddha sees me.

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