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.

The true understanding is that the practice itself is enlightenment.

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

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.

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?

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

To live is enough.

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

The truth of Zen is the truth of life, and life means to live, to move, to act, not merely to reflect.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Enlightenment is intimacy with all things.

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

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

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

We should find perfect existence through imperfect existence.

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

To study the Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.