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.

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

Enlightenment is intimacy with all things.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

The mind has first to be attuned to the Unconscious.

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

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.

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

The true understanding is that the practice itself is enlightenment.

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

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

To see nothing is to perceive the Way, and to understand nothing is to know the Dharma.

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

The obstacle is the path.

To live is enough.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

Whoever told you that practice and enlightenment are separate?

The practice of Zen mind is beginner's mind. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind there are few.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

The Buddha and all sentient beings are nothing but expressions of the one mind. There is nothing else.

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

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

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

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

Just to be alive is enough.

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

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.

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

If you forget yourself, you become the universe.

We should find perfect existence through imperfect existence.

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

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

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

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

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

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