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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

The obstacle is the path.

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

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

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

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

The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the expert, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all the possibilities.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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 world is its own magic.

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.

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

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

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

Our practice cannot be perfect, but without being discouraged by this, we should continue it. This is the secret of practice.

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 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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point.

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.

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

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.

We should find perfect existence through imperfect existence.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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