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

When you walk in the mist, you get wet.

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

The way is basically perfect. It is not a matter of practice or enlightenment.

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

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.

The treasure house within you contains everything, and you are free to use it. You don't need to seek outside.

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.

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

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

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.

Personal experience is everything in Zen. No ideas are intelligible to those who have no backing of experience.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To live is enough.

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

Just to be alive is enough.

The menu is not the meal.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Do not think you will necessarily be aware of your own enlightenment.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

The obstacle is the path.

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

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

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

The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in one dewdrop on the grass.

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

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.

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

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

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

Each of you is perfect the way you are... and you can use a little improvement.

The world is its own magic.

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

The true understanding is that the practice itself is enlightenment.