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

The true understanding is that the practice itself is enlightenment.

Whoever told you that practice and enlightenment are separate?

Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.

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

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

The obstacle is the path.

Not knowing how near the truth is, we seek it far away.

The silence between the notes is as important as the notes themselves.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

We should find perfect existence through imperfect existence.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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.

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.

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.

The most important point is to accept yourself and stand on your two feet.

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 farther you enter into truth, the deeper it is.

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

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

To live is enough.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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