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.

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

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

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.

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

The menu is not the meal.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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 true person is not anyone in particular. But like the deep blue color of the limitless sky, it is everyone, everywhere in the world.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

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

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

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

Just to be alive is enough.

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

The true understanding is that the practice itself is enlightenment.

Personal experience is everything in Zen. No ideas are intelligible to those who have no backing of experience.

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

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

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

The world is its own magic.

The mind has first to be attuned to the Unconscious.

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.

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

If you forget yourself, you become the universe.

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

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

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

The obstacle is the path.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.

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

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

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.