If you forget yourself, you become the universe.

Enlightenment is intimacy with all things.

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

Birth and death are neither two things nor one thing. Life is not an appearance, death is not a disappearance.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There is no need to have a deep understanding of Zen. Even though you read much Zen literature, you must read each sentence with a fresh mind.

The mind has first to be attuned to the Unconscious.

We should find perfect existence through imperfect existence.

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

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.

The world is its own magic.

The truth of Zen is the truth of life, and life means to live, to move, to act, not merely to reflect.

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

Just to be alive is enough.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

To live is enough.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

When you walk in the mist, you get wet.

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

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

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

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

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

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

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?

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

The menu is not the meal.

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

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

The true understanding is that the practice itself is enlightenment.

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.

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

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

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

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

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