If you are smart, you never retire. You may retire from that job you have had for many years, but you will pick up another career for yourself of some type.

It is necessary to go through all the daily tasks and bring perfection to them, to learn to be perfect in your meditation, and to win in all your endeavors so that one day you will complete again.

The samurais were very interested in Zen because they admired the tremendous precision that the Zen Masters had, their lack of fear and pain and their absolute lack of fear of death.

We throw you as many as you want, in this profession, and the more you want the more we'll give you, until you're so confused that you'll just beg for us to stop. Stop what? You're the one who started it - you're doing it anyway.

The third stage is no thought. No thought is not the end of meditation. It is the beginning of higher meditation.

If you are finding that you can stop thought longer and longer, I would say your life is bringing power into your being. You are gaining things out from that field behind the house.

I consider those persons to be my students who come and meditate with me on a regular basis, who, in spite of the hardships and difficulties on the path of knowledge, still continue to try, and who respect me as I respect them.