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

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

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

The menu is not the meal.

Just to be alive is enough.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

The world is its own magic.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

What we call "I" is just a swinging door which moves when we inhale and when we exhale.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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 true understanding is that the practice itself is enlightenment.

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

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

We should find perfect existence through imperfect existence.

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

The contradiction so puzzling to the ordinary way of thinking comes from the fact that we have to use language to communicate our inner experience, which in its very nature transcends linguistics.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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