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

Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

When you walk in the mist, you get wet.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the expert, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all the possibilities.

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

To live is enough.

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

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

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

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

We should find perfect existence through imperfect existence.

Technical knowledge is not enough. One must transcend techniques so that the art becomes an artless art, growing out of the unconscious.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Intrinsically all living beings are Buddhas, just as ice and water are of the same substance.

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

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

When dharma fills your body and mind, you realize that something is missing.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

If you forget yourself, you become the universe.

Just to be alive is enough.

The menu is not the meal.

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

The obstacle is the path.

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

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.

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

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

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

Zen is a way of life, not a theory or a piece of knowledge to be stored away in our minds.