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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

When you realize how perfect everything is, you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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?

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

To what shall I compare this life? It is like a boat that left at dawn, leaving no trace.

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

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

The mind is the root from which all things grow. If you can understand the mind, everything else is included.

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

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

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

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.

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

The mind has first to be attuned to the Unconscious.

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

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.

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

We should find perfect existence through imperfect existence.

There is no need to have a deep understanding of Zen. Even though you read much Zen literature, you must read each sentence with a fresh mind.

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

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.

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.

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

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

When you walk in the mist, you get wet.

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

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

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

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

The true understanding is that the practice itself is enlightenment.

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

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

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 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.

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