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

Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Treat every moment as your last. It is not preparation for something else.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Just to be alive is enough.

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.

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

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

Wherever you are, you are one with the clouds and one with the sun and the stars you see. You are one with everything. That is more true than I can say, and more true than you can hear.

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

Just as parents care for their children, you should bear in mind the whole universe.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

If you forget yourself, you become the universe.

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

When you walk in the mist, you get wet.

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

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

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

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

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 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.

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

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

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?

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

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.

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

Whoever told you that practice and enlightenment are separate?

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

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

A flower falls, even though we love it; and a weed grows, even though we do not love it.

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

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

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.

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

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

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