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

The world is its own magic.

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.

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

The best way to control people is to encourage them to be mischievous. Then they will be in control in a wider sense.

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

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

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

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

The mind has first to be attuned to the Unconscious.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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 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.

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

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

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

When you practice zazen you should not try to attain anything. You should just sit in the complete calmness of your mind and not rely on anything.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Just to be alive is enough.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Whoever told you that practice and enlightenment are separate?

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

Zen proposes its solution by directly appealing to facts of personal experience and not to book-knowledge.

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

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

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

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

The menu is not the meal.

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