Meditation in the midst of activity is a thousand times superior to meditation in stillness.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.

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.

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

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

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

The world is its own magic.

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

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.

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

Whoever told you that practice and enlightenment are separate?

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

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

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.

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

The farther you enter into truth, the deeper it is.

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.

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

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.

If you forget yourself, you become the universe.

Moment after moment, completely devote yourself to listening to your inner voice.

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

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

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

Without accepting the fact that everything changes, we cannot find perfect composure.

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

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

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

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.

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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 live is enough.

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?