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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The true understanding is that the practice itself is enlightenment.

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

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 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 menu is not the meal.

The role of Zen is neither to stand above life nor to run away from it, but to face it with a spirit of determination.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 mind has first to be attuned to the Unconscious.

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

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

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

Whoever told you that practice and enlightenment are separate?

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

When you walk in the mist, you get wet.

To see nothing is to perceive the Way, and to understand nothing is to know the Dharma.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

The world is its own magic.

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

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

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

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

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