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

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

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

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

If you forget yourself, you become the universe.

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.

Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.

To live is enough.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

Without darkness, there is no light. Without the path, there is no arrival.

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.

Where is the place that your original face has not yet emerged?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When you walk in the mist, you get wet.

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

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.

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

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

The true understanding is that the practice itself is enlightenment.

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

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

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.

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