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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Just to be alive is enough.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.

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

If you forget yourself, you become the universe.

Even if you speak of 'understanding,' this understanding is not a matter of knowledge. It is what fills the entire body and mind.

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.

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

The menu is not the meal.

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

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

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.

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.

To what shall I compare this life? It is like a boat that left at dawn, leaving no trace.

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

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

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.

The best way to control people is to encourage them to be mischievous. Then they will be in control in a wider sense.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

The mind has first to be attuned to the Unconscious.

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

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

The world is its own magic.

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

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.

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.

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

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 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.