Be aware of yourself without thinking or looking in the mirror

what is not true does not exist in this moment.

To think, or not to think…This is the true question.

Your actions create an “energy vortex” that draws in the necessary ingredients for your venture.

In general, I call her every night, and we talk for an hour, which is forty-five minutes of me, and fifteen minutes of her stirring her tea, which she steeps with the kind of Zen...

But people of the deepest understanding look within, distracted by nothing. Since a clear mind is the Buddha, they attain the understanding of a Buddha without using the mind.

Every answer you ever need lies within your own silence..

Sometimes it takes a miracle to remind us that the only permanent condition is that of impermanence.

When you’ve understood this scripture, throw it away. If you can’t understand this scripture, throw it away. I insist on your freedom.

What is the purpose of writing music? One is, of course, not dealing with purposes but dealing with sounds. Or the answer must take the form of a paradox: a purposeful purposeless or a purposeless...

The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings.

No bow can be strung indefinitely, for it will surely break

I don’t know where I’m going on this path. I don’t know what I’m doing with my life. You had to be lost, before you could be found. These are the truths. You had to...

I did not believe in stalemates. I believed in resolutions, one way or another, and if I found myself on the losing end, so be it. Losing meant quiet, and forgetting quickly, and giving up...

There are no problems, only solutions.

Who we are now is all that really matters.

The right art,” cried the Master, “is purposeless, aimless! The more obstinately you try to learn how to shoot the arrow for the sake of hitting the goal, the less you will succeed in the...

If you are surrounded by people who not only don’t believe in your goals and your positive outlook on life, but who also continually try to tear you down, it will be extremely challenging for...

upon” in our consciousness. The mind is one indivisible whole and cannot be torn in pieces. The so-called terra incognita is the concession of Zen to our ordinary way of talking, because whatever field of...

…it should be remembered that men always prize that most which is least enjoyed.

All other creatures look down toward the earth, but man was given a face so that might turn his eyes toward the stars and his gaze upon the sky.

Indicating his twisted legs without a trace of self-pity or bitterness, as if they belonged to all of us, he casts his arms wide to the sky and the snow mountains, the high sun and...

As we live out of such a mind, we become generous, with no sense of tolerance. We become patient, with no sense of putting up with anything. We become compassionate, with no sense of separation....

Too lazy to be ambitious,I let the world take care of itself.Ten days’ worth of rice in my bag;a bundle of twigs by the fireplace.Why chatter about delusion and enlightenment?Listening to the night rain on...

Letting go is the lesson. Letting go is always the lesson. Have you ever noticed how much of our agony is all tied up with craving and loss?

To travel is to be alive, but to get somewhere is to be dead.

One must be deeply aware of the impermanence of the world.

The most dangerous thing about an academic education is that it enables my tendency to over-intellectualize stuff, to get lost in abstract thinking instead of simply paying attention to what’s going on in front of...

don’t wait for the man standing in the snowto cut off his arm help him now

When you blame, you open up a world of excuses, because as long as you’re looking outside, you miss the opportunity to look inside, and you continue to suffer.

Why are you here?Where am I?You have come to this place… to lie in the ground?The derision in the question was clear.I have come to this place to find peace.And what is peace?Laughter in the...

The truth knocks on the door and you say, “Go away, I’m looking for the truth,” and so it goes away. Puzzling.

To deny the reality of things is to miss their reality; to assert the emptiness of things is to miss their reality. The more you talk and think about it, the further astray you wander...

The importance and unimportance of the self cannot be exaggerated.

The most important thing is to forget all gaining ideas, all dualistic ideas. In other words, just practice zazen in a certain posture.

impermanence” – they are very difficult to be managed, and this bring people to panic.This difficulty to experience a reality in which nothing is permanent, that all is in constant motion- change, belongs to the...

Not thinking about anything is Zen. Once you know this, walking, sitting, or lying down, everything you do is Zen.

To Mr. Jones, she said, imagine you’re looking up at a blue sky, and imagine a tiny airplane skywriting the letter Z. Then let the wind erase the letter. Then imagine the plane writing the...

A peaceful mind appreciates the present moment as the living embodiment of naked perfection, rather than a means to future attainment.

The point of the spiritual life is to realize Truth. But you will never understand the spiritual life, or realize Truth, if you measure it by your own yardstick.

I discovered that those who seldom dwell on their emotions know better than anyone else just what an emotion is.

I am everything. I am nothing. I am powerful. I am forgotten.

It’s kind of like a Zen thing. Like playing the piano, or being a centipede in Heaven.

Maybe it’s a question, to be lived.

In the name of Him Who created and sustains the world, the Sage Who endowed tongue with speech. He attains no honor who turns the face from the doer of His mercy. The kings of...

That’s practically zen.

He said he’d heard the sound of one hand clapping. He said, once his mind took in the wondrous no-sound of holy oneness, the empty echo of eternal bliss, he was never the same. He...

You have described only too well,” replied the Master, “where the difficulty lies…The right shot at the right moment does not come because you do not let go of yourself. You…brace yourself for failure. So...

The true source of happiness is within each of us.

When mountain-climbing is made too easy, the spiritual effect the mountain exercises vanishes into the air.