The world is its own magic.

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

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

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

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

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.

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?

The mind is like a well-forged sword - it adapts to all situations.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

The farther you enter into truth, the deeper it is.

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

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.

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

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

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whoever told you that practice and enlightenment are separate?

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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