When you walk in the mist, you get wet.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point.

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

The true understanding is that the practice itself is enlightenment.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Buddhas and ordinary beings are not two. Enlightenment and delusion are not different paths.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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