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

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.

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

If you forget yourself, you become the universe.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

The mind has first to be attuned to the Unconscious.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The true person is not anyone in particular. But like the deep blue color of the limitless sky, it is everyone, everywhere in the world.

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

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

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

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

Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.

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.

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.