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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

The mind has first to be attuned to the Unconscious.

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Leave your front door and your back door open. Allow your thoughts to come and go. Just don't serve them tea.

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

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

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.

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

The state of mind that exists when you sit in the right posture is, itself, enlightenment.

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

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.

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

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

The menu is not the meal.

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.

Zen proposes its solution by directly appealing to facts of personal experience and not to book-knowledge.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Whoever told you that practice and enlightenment are separate?

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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