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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

The world is its own magic.

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

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

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

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

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

Even if you speak of 'understanding,' this understanding is not a matter of knowledge. It is what fills the entire body and mind.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

The obstacle is the path.

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

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

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

The way is basically perfect. It is not a matter of practice or enlightenment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

The menu is not the meal.

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

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

To carry yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion. That myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening.

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

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

Enlightenment is intimacy with all things.