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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

The obstacle is the path.

When you walk in the mist, you get wet.

We should find perfect existence through imperfect existence.

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

Just to be alive is enough.

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

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

Zen in its essence is the art of seeing into the nature of one's own being, and it points the way from bondage to freedom.

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

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

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 time of the past becomes the present, the time of the present becomes the future, the time of the future becomes the present, and the time of the present becomes the past.

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.

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

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

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

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

Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.

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

The true understanding is that the practice itself is enlightenment.

The dharma wheel turns from the beginning. There is neither excess nor deficiency. The whole universe is moistened with nectar, and the truth is ready to harvest.

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

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

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