If I am asked If I am asked, then, what Zen teaches, I would answer, Zen teaches nothing. Whatever teachings there are in Zen, they come out of one's own mind. We teach ourselves; Zen merely points the way.

Personal experience, therefore, is everything in Zen. No ideas are intelligible to those who have no backing of experience.

Unless it grows out of yourself no knowledge is really yours, it is only borrowed plumage.

Zen has no business with ideas.

Technical knowledge is not enough. One must transcend techniques so that the art becomes an artless art, growing out of the unconscious.

The rocks are where they are- and this is their will. The rivers flow- and this is their will. The birds fly- this is their will. Human beings talk- this is their will. The seasons change, heaven sends down rain or snow, the earth occasionally shakes, the waves roll, the stars shine- each of them follows its own will. To be is to will and so is to become.

The mind has first to be attuned to the Unconscious.