This is the real secret of life -- to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Enlightenment is intimacy with all things.

Life and death are of supreme importance. Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost. Each of us should strive to awaken. Awaken! Take heed, do not squander your life.

Do not follow the ideas of others, but learn to listen to the voice within yourself.

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

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

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

The real secret of the arts: always be a beginner.

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

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

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

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.

If you forget yourself, you become the universe.

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

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

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

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

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

Just to be alive is enough.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

Technical knowledge is not enough. One must transcend techniques so that the art becomes an artless art, growing out of the unconscious.

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

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.

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.