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.

Moment after moment, completely devote yourself to listening to your inner voice.

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

To live is enough.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The world is its own magic.

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

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

When you walk in the mist, you get wet.

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

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

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

If you forget yourself, you become the universe.

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

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.

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 menu is not the meal.

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.

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

Not knowing how near the truth is, we seek it far away.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

We should find perfect existence through imperfect existence.

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

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

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

The true understanding is that the practice itself is enlightenment.

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

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.

Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.

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

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.

The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the expert, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all the possibilities.

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

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

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

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.

Enlightenment is intimacy with all things.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.