Enlightenment is not about becoming divine. Instead, it's about becoming more fully human.

The more you meditate, the more you understand yourself and the better friend you become to yourself.

Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

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

All that appears and exists, all of samsara and nirvana, has one ground, two paths, and two results. This is the magical display of awareness and unawareness.

Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.

The more we understand impermanence, the more we appreciate each moment of our lives.

The mind is everything. What you think, you become.

Meditation is like a gym in which you develop the powerful mental muscles of calm and insight.

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

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

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

The grass is greener where you water it.

The true hero is one who conquers his own anger and hatred.

Concentration and insight are like two wings of a bird: both are necessary for the flight to liberation.

Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is relax.

The past is for learning from, not for living in.

Peace requires us to surrender our illusions of control.

External phenomena are like a dream, whatever appears is not real. Recognize the nature of dream-like phenomena to be dream-like.

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 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 practitioner and practice are like fire and wood. The more you practice, the more you burn.

When you walk in the mist, you get wet.

Every thought, every word, and every action leaves an imprint on our mind.

Wisdom is not about accumulating knowledge, but about seeing through all knowledge.

The purpose of meditation is to gain right understanding of the true nature of mental and physical phenomena.

Don't take life too seriously. No one gets out alive anyway.

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

If you want to know your past life, look at your present condition. If you want to know your future life, look at your present actions.

Conquer anger with non-anger. Conquer evil with good. Conquer stinginess with giving. Conquer deceit with truth.

In the moment of anger, abandon anger but not the person. In the moment of attachment, abandon attachment but not the person.

Meditation is not an escape from life but a way to fully engage with life.

There is no way to happiness - happiness is the way.