When you do something, you should burn yourself up completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.

If your practice is good, you may become proud of it. What you do is good, but something more is added to it. Pride is extra. Right effort is to get rid of something extra.

So it is not a matter of whether it is possible to attain Buddhahood, or if it is possible to make a tile a jewel. But just to work, just to live in this world with this understanding is the most important point, and that is our practice. That is true zazen.

Christopher McCandless:"I will miss you too, but you are wrong if you think that the joy of life comes principally from the joy of human relationships. God's place is all around us, it is in everything and in anything we can experience. People just need to change the way they look at things.

The more you practice zazen, the more you will be able to accept something as your own, whatever it is.

Zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration on our usual everyday routine.

The seed has no idea of being some particular plant, but it has its own form and is in perfect harmony with the ground, with its surroundings ... and there is no trouble. This is what we mean by naturalness.