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

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

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

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

Where is the place that your original face has not yet emerged?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The menu is not the meal.

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

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

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

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?

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

Just to be alive is enough.

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

We should find perfect existence through imperfect existence.

Enlightenment is intimacy with all things.

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

The way is basically perfect. It is not a matter of practice or enlightenment.

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.

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

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

Life and death are of supreme importance. Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost. Each of us should strive to awaken. Awaken! Take heed, do not squander your life.

Whoever told you that practice and enlightenment are separate?

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

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.

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

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

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

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 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.

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

The fundamental delusion of humanity is to suppose that I am here and you are out there.

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

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

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

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

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

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

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

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

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

To live is enough.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.