Three things cannot long be hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.
Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.
Concentrate the mind on the present moment.
All that we are is the result of what we have thought; what we think we become.
What you think you become.
The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in one dewdrop on the grass.
Sitting quietly, doing nothing, Spring comes, and the grass grows, by itself.
Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.
Zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration on our usual everyday routine.
Before I had studied Zen for thirty years, I saw mountains as mountains, and waters as waters. When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge, I came to the point where I saw that mountains are not mountains, and waters are not waters. But now that I have got its very substance I am at rest. For it's just that I see mountains once again as mountains, and waters once again as waters.
If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Watch your step.
To set up what you like against what you dislike, this is the disease of the mind.
Where can I find a man who has forgotten words, so I can have a few words with him?
The greatest effort is not concerned with results.
Fighting for one's freedom, struggling towards being free, is like struggling to be a poet or a good Christian or a good Jew or a good Muslim or good Zen Buddhist. You work all day long and achieve some kind of level of success by nightfall, go to sleep and wake up the next morning with the job still to be done. So you start all over again.
There's something Zen-like about the way I work - it's like raking gravel in a Zen Buddhist garden.
According to Zen Buddhist cosmology there are ten thousand different states of mind to view and understand life through.
And finally, be assured that Zen asks nothing even as it promises nothing. One can be a Protestant Zen Buddhist, a Catholic Zen Buddhist or a Jewish Zen Buddhist. Zen is a quiet thing. It listens.
But the solution to the riddle of life and space and time lies outside space and time. For, as it should be abundantly clear by now, nothing inside a frame can state, or even ask, anything about that frame. The solution, then, is not the finding of an answer to the riddle of existence, but the realization that there is no riddle. This is the essence of the beautiful, almost Zen Buddhist closing sentences of the Tracticus: "For an answer which cannot be expressed the question too cannot be expressed. The riddle does not exist."
or simply: