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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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 role of Zen is neither to stand above life nor to run away from it, but to face it with a spirit of determination.

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

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

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

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

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.

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Just to be alive is enough.

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

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

Whoever told you that practice and enlightenment are separate?

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

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.

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

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

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

The true understanding is that the practice itself is enlightenment.

Zen is not necessarily against words, but it is well aware of their limitations.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

We should find perfect existence through imperfect existence.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.