We feel our shell keeps us safe, but it crushes us and others, and keeps out light and sun..

From your first day at school you are cut off from life to make theories..

To practice Zen or the Martial Arts, you must live intensely, wholeheartedly, without reserve - as if you might die in the next instant.

Zen is not a particular state but the normal state: silent, peaceful, unagitated. In Zazen neither intention, analysis, specific effort nor imaginati….

In a fight between a strong technique and a strong body, technique will prevail. In a fight between a strong mind and a strong technique, mind will p….

If you have a glass full of liquid you can discourse forever on its qualities, discuss whether it is cold, warm, whether it is really and truly compo….

You have to practice until you die..

Nobody today is normal, everybody is a little bit crazy or unbalanced, people's minds are running all the time. Their perceptions of the world are pa….

Time is not a line, but a series of now-points..

The silence of the mountain is even more beautiful once the birds are quiet..

You must concentrate upon and consecrate yourself wholly to each day, as though a fire were raging in your hair..

During zazen, brain and consciousness become pure. It's exactly like muddy water left to stand in a glass. Little by little, the sediment sinks to th….

If you are not happy here and now, you never will be..

If we achieve satori and the satori shows, like a bit of dogshit stuck to the top of our nose, that is not so good..

Keep your hands open, and all the sands of the desert can pass through them. Close them, and all you can feel is a bit of grit..

Harmonizing opposites by going back to their source is the distinctive quality of the Zen attitude, the Middle Way: embracing contradictions, making ….

The body moves naturally, automatically, without any personal intervention or awareness. If we think too much, our actions become slow and hesitant..

Descartes said, "I think, therefore I am." I say, "I do not think, that is why I exist.".

Behavior influences consciousness. Right behavior means right consciousness. Our attitude here and now influences the entire environment: our words, ….

What is called zazen is sitting on a zafu [pillow] in a quiet room, absolutely still, in the exact and proper position and without uttering a word, t….

You cannot separate any part from the whole: interdependence rules the cosmic order..