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

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

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

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

The world is its own magic.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Not knowing how near the truth is, we seek it far away.

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

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

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

The mind has first to be attuned to the Unconscious.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

To live is enough.

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

The fundamental delusion of humanity is to suppose that I am here and you are out there.

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.

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

Just to be alive is enough.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

When you walk in the mist, you get wet.

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.

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