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

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

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

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

What Zen wants us to do is to acquire an entirely new point of view whereby to look into the mysteries of life and the secrets of nature.

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

The menu is not the meal.

Birth and death are neither two things nor one thing. Life is not an appearance, death is not a disappearance.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

To what shall I compare this life? It is like a boat that left at dawn, leaving no trace.

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

When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point.

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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 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.

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

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.

Whoever told you that practice and enlightenment are separate?

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

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

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

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 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.

The obstacle is the path.

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

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

When you walk in the mist, you get wet.

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

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

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

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.

Study how water flows in a valley stream, smoothly and freely between the rocks.

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

The mind has first to be attuned to the Unconscious.

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

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.

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

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

Enlightenment is intimacy with all things.

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