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

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

Where is the place that your original face has not yet emerged?

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

If you forget yourself, you become the universe.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

Where there is great doubt, there is great awakening; small doubt, small awakening; no doubt, no awakening.

To live is enough.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

The obstacle is the path.

When walking, just walk. When sitting, just sit. Above all, don't wobble.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.

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

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

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

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

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

Just to be alive is enough.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Enlightenment is intimacy with all things.

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

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