The secret of Soto Zen is just two words: not always so.... In Japanese, it's two words, three words in English. That is the secret of our practice.

Wherever you go you will find your teacher, as long as you have the eyes to see and the ears to hear.

You want to eliminate your evil desires in order to reveal your Buddha nature, but where will you throw them away?

When we become truly ourselves, we just become a swinging door, and we are purely independent of, and at the same time, dependent upon everything.

Big mind is something to express, not something to figure out. Big mind is something you have, not something to seek for.

When we have our body and mind in order, everything else will exist in the right place, in the right way. But usually, without being aware of it, we try to change something other than ourselves; we try to order things outside us. But it is impossible to organize things if you yourself are not in order. When you do things in the right way, at the right time, everything else will be organized.

Tai Shimano visited Shunryu Suzuki. "How are you feeling these days?" Suzuki replied, "They have a new name for me: Cancer!"