Life and death are of supreme importance. Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost. Each of us should strive to awaken. Awaken! Take heed, do not squander your life.

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

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

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

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 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.

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.

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

To live is enough.

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

The true understanding is that the practice itself is enlightenment.

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

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.

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.

Enlightenment is intimacy with all things.

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

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.

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

We should find perfect existence through imperfect existence.

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.

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

Just to be alive is enough.

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

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

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

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

The menu is not the meal.

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

Our practice cannot be perfect, but without being discouraged by this, we should continue it. This is the secret of practice.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Birth and death are neither two things nor one thing. Life is not an appearance, death is not a disappearance.

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

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.

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

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

The obstacle is the path.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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