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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

The mind is the root from which all things grow. If you can understand the mind, everything else is included.

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

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

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

The world is its own magic.

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

Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.

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

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

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.

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

Whoever told you that practice and enlightenment are separate?

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

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

The archer ceases to be conscious of himself as the one who is engaged in hitting the bull's-eye which confronts him. This state of unconsciousness is realized only when, completely empty and rid of the self, he becomes one with the perfecting of his technical skill.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

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

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

When you walk in the mist, you get wet.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

We should find perfect existence through imperfect existence.

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

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 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.

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

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

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.

Just to be alive is enough.

To live – is that not enough? To love – is that not everything?