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

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

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

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

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

If you forget yourself, you become the universe.

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

The basic teaching of Buddhism is the teaching of transiency, or change.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

The mind has first to be attuned to the Unconscious.

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.

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 obstacle is the path.

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

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

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

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

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.

We should find perfect existence through imperfect existence.

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

Just to be alive is enough.

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

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

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.

Whoever told you that practice and enlightenment are separate?

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

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