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

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

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 menu is not the meal.

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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.

The treasure house within you contains everything, and you are free to use it. You don't need to seek outside.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The mind has first to be attuned to the Unconscious.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

The obstacle is the path.

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

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

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 live is enough.

The instant you speak about a thing, you miss the mark.

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

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

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

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

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

The true understanding is that the practice itself is enlightenment.

The awareness that you are here, right now, is the ultimate fact.

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

The world is its own magic.

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.