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

The purpose of studying Buddhism is not to study Buddhism, but to study ourselves.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

The superior person is like water, bringing benefit to all without competing.

Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.

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

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

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

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

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

In a mind clear as still water, even the waves, breaking, are reflecting its light.

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

If you forget yourself, you become the universe.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

Just to be alive is enough.

When you walk in the mist, you get wet.

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

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.

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

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

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

The world is its own magic.

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

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.

Whoever told you that practice and enlightenment are separate?

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

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.

To live – is that not enough? To love – is that not everything?

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

The true understanding is that the practice itself is enlightenment.

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

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

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