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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Enlightenment is intimacy with all things.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

What Zen wants us to do is to acquire an entirely new point of view whereby to look into the mysteries of life and the secrets of nature.

Time passes unhindered. When we make ourselves better, we make the world better.

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

If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

There is no need to have a deep understanding of Zen. Even though you read much Zen literature, you must read each sentence with a fresh mind.

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

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

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

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

Only when you can be extremely pliable and soft can you be extremely hard and strong.

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

The mind has first to be attuned to the Unconscious.

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

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

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

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

To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things.

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

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

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

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.

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

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