The way of Zen is to become independent and strong. Don't rely on others for perceptions of life and truth. Do it individually. Go to a teacher of Zen to learn how to do that, not to get answers for individual life situations.

The period of meditation is a time when we go back to the source. We go back to what we were before we were born.

Knowledge is the ability to love, the ability to feel, the ability to probe the depths and the heights of life. It is the experience of the experiencer, and at the same time, it is beyond that.

Nirvikalpa samadhi is another matter. In order to enter into nirvikalpa samadhi, you must have a great deal of humility.

All incarnations are lived at once, and yet there does seem to be a linear sense of time when you're in the vortex of time and space, when your consciousness is fixated in a body.

Nature soothes us. Nature heals us, and something more, the woods are a place of power. Any woods that are still surviving on this planet, those are powerful areas to have kept themselves free from the encroachment of the industrial societies of our earth.

Sit down, keep your back straight, relax and have an object on which to concentrate; you might use a candle flame, a brightly colored rock, a yantra, which is a geometrical designed specifically for the practice of concentration.