A strong personal philosophy does more than sustain us through the tragedies of life. It also stains us daily in everything we think and do. It gives us optimism and hope.

Doffing the ego’ssafe glory, he findshis naked reality.

You want to know my name? –a hill, a tree. An empty drifting boat.

1. A Cup of Tea Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), recieved a university professor who came to inqure about Zen. Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then...

has no patience with mysticism, far less the occult.” Nor does it have any time with moralism, the prescriptions or distortions we would impose on the world, obscuring it from our view. It asks, it...

Flow with whatever may happen, and let your mind be free: Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.

Some people live as though they are already dead. There are people moving around us who are consumed by their past, terrified of their future, and stuck in their anger and jealousy. They are not...

A student, filled with emotion and crying, implored, “Why is there so much suffering?”Suzuki Roshi replied, “No reason.

It’s like you took a bottle of ink and you threw it at a wall. Smash! And all that ink spread. And in the middle, it’s dense, isn’t it? And as it gets out on...

Every man possesses the Buddha-nature. Do not demean yourselves.

I wrote a zen koan once about love, but it didn’t make any sense. That’s how I knew I had accurately described love.

I’d love to give you somethingbut what would help?

Think of the jazz improv artist responding to the musical banter among her fellow players onstage. Aside from whatever training they’ve done in advance, as soon as the curtain opens, they move into unknown territory...

The things I carry are my thoughts. That’s it. They are the only weight. My thoughts determine whether I am free and light or burdened.

Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire. The reality of your own nature should determine the speed. If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down....

The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. When love and hate are both absent everything becomes clear and undisguised. Make the smallest distinction, however, and heaven and earth are set...

What is Zen? Zen means doing anything perfectly, making mistakes perfectly, being defeated perfectly, hesitating perfectly, doing anything perfectly or imperfectly, perfectly. What is the meaning of this perfectly? How does it differ from perfectly?...

I’m a practicing Zen Buddhist and I’m influenced by my readings in that tradition, such as the notion that everyone is born a perfect being and we spend most of our lives with a clouded...

Life is more or less a lie, but then again, that’s exactly the way we want it to be.

Your Treasure House is in yourself, it contains all you need

The more you engage in any type of emotion or behavior, the greater your desire for it will become.

The object of Zen is not to kill all feelings and become anesthetized to pain and fear. The object of Zen is to free us to scream loudly and fully when it is time to...

When the mind is exhausted of images, it invents its own.

We are searching for the core of our lives; our culture intuits that writing, that ancient activity, might be the pathway…Awakening does not feed ego’s needs and desires; it pulverizes the self. Our society couldn’t...

Travel is such a wonderful experience! Especially when you forget you are traveling. Then you will enjoy whatever you see and do. Those who look into themselves when they travel will not think about what...

It is a wretched thing that the young men of today are so contriving and so proud of their material posessions. Men with contriving hearts are lacking in duty. Lacking in duty, they will have...

The way is not clear, and it is when you do not have clarity, when this is allowed, that you will finally have clarity.

Hand over your responses to the man who triggers them, and you have already lost the battle for self. Look beyond, and find yourself there instead.

But when you’re in front of an audience and you make them laugh at a new idea, you’re guiding the whole being for the moment. No one is ever more him/herself than when they really...

Stress comes from the way you relate to events or situations.

The dizziness in the face of les espaces infinis–only overcome if we dare to gaze into them without any protection. And accept them as the reality before which we must justify our existence. For this...

It is easy to believe we are each waves and forget we are also the ocean.

13. A Buddha In Tokyo in th Meiji era there lived two prominent teachers of opposite characteristics. One, Unsho, an instructor in Shingon, kept Buddha’s precepts scrupulously. He never drank intoxicants, nor did he eat...

Today most scientists would agree with the ancient Hindus that nothing exists or is destroyed, things merely change shape or form…the cosmic radiation that is thought to come from the explosion of creation strikes the...

The baby looks at things all day without winking; that is because his eyes are not focused on any particular object. He goes without knowing where he is going, and stops without knowing what he...

Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.

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

Stay in the center, and you will be ready to move in any direction.

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.

I’ll carry Carrie, yet keep my hands empty. I’ll hold her in my thoughts.

Hearing a crow with no mouthCry in the deepDarkness of the night,I feel a longing forMy father before he was born.

Not till your thoughts cease all their branching here and there, not till you abandon all thoughts of seeking for something, not till your mind is motionless as wood or stone, will you be on...

Life is a river,” a wise friend told me. “It’s flowing. You’re never at the same place twice.

You’ve got to live right, too. It’s the way you live that predisposes you to avoid the traps and see the right facts. You want to know how to paint a perfect painting? It’s easy....

To live in the Great Way is neither easy nor difficult, but those with limited views are fearful and irresolute: the faster they hurry, the slower they go, and clinging cannot be limited: even to...

The sun shines, snow falls, mountains rise and valleys sink, night deepens and pales into day, but it is only very seldom that we attend to such things. . . . When we are grasping...

If the feet of enlightenment moved, the great ocean would overflow; If that head bowed, it would look down upon the heavens.Such a body has no place to rest. . . .Let another continue this...

Only the iPad that autocorrects can write the true thing.

I have lived with several Zen masters — all of them cats.

Again, all of life presents us with two basic ways to treat events. We can either label them “god for us” or “bad for us.” The event is only an event. It’s how we treat...