Here's an example: someone says, "Master, please hand me the knife," and he hands them the knife, blade first. "Please give me the other end," he says. And the master replies, "What would you do with the other end?" This is answering an everyday matter in terms of the metaphysical. When the question is, "Master, what is the fundamental principle of Buddhism?" Then he replies, "There is enough breeze in this fan to keep me cool." That is answering the metaphysical in terms of the everyday, and that is, more or less, the principle zen works on. The mundane and the sacred are one and the same.

For if you know what you want, and will be content with it, you can be trusted. But if you do not know, your desires are limitless and no one can tell how to deal with you. Nothing satisfies an individual incapable of enjoyment.

People become concerned with being more humble than other people.

For there is never anything but the present, and if one cannot live there, one cannot live anywhere.

At times almost all of us envy the animals. They suffer and die, but do not seem to make a "problem" of it.

You are something that the whole world is doing just as when the sea has waves on it.

The destination of life is this eternal moment.