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

If you forget yourself, you become the universe.

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

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

The true understanding is that the practice itself is enlightenment.

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

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

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

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

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

Enlightenment is intimacy with all things.

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

To live is enough.

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

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

We should find perfect existence through imperfect existence.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

The menu is not the meal.

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

Just to be alive is enough.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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?