All meditations are nothing but efforts to bring you to the present. When you live in the present moment, with no past hanging around you, with no future projection, you are free from life and death, you are free from body and mind. You are free - simply free - you are freedom.

Only man has become an outsider - and because of his own efforts. On his own, he has separated himself from existence.

Zen people love Buddha so tremendously that they can even play jokes upon him. It is out of great love; they are not afraid.

Whenever it happens it is never late; whenever it happens it is always early. The happening is so great that you cannot claim it for yourself. You cannot say: `I have earned it.` The happening is so great that it is always through grace and not through effort. It happens through effortlessness. Whenever it happens, you know well that it is through compassion, grace, that it has happened. It has nothing to do with you or your earning

Imitation has to be avoided. Understanding should be the only law, never imitation.

There is no God, but there is certainly a quality I call godliness. It comprises compassion, love, friendship, joy, creativity. It brings you new songs, it brings you new dances. It brings you the truth, and the immersion of you into the truth.

Don´t be unnecessarily burdened by the past. Go on closing the chapters that you have read; there is no need to go back again and again.