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

Zen is not necessarily against words, but it is well aware of their limitations.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

When you walk in the mist, you get wet.

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

Only when you can be extremely pliable and soft can you be extremely hard and strong.

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?

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whoever told you that practice and enlightenment are separate?

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

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

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

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

We should find perfect existence through imperfect existence.

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

The mind has first to be attuned to the Unconscious.

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

The Buddha and all sentient beings are nothing but expressions of the one mind. There is nothing else.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The true understanding is that the practice itself is enlightenment.

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

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

The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.

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

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

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

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