The secret of zen is just two words: not... always... so.

Zazen practice and everyday activity are one thing. We call zazen everyday life, and everyday life zazen.

It is not after we understand the truth that we attain enlightenment. To realize the truth is to live - to exist here and now.

Ego is a social institution with no physical reality. The ego is simply your symbol of yourself.

So the secret is just to say 'Yes!' and jump off from here. Then there is no problem. It means to be yourself, always yourself, without sticking to an old self.

The Zen way of calligraphy is to write in the most straightforward, simple way as if you were a beginner, not trying to make something skillful or beautiful, but simply writing with full attention as if you were discovering what you were writing for the first time; then your full nature will be in your writing.

If enlightenment comes first, before thinking, before practice, your thinking and your practice will not be self-centered. By enlightenment I mean believing in nothing, believing in something which has no form or no color, which is ready to take form or color. This enlightenment is the immutable truth. It is on this orginal truth that our activity, our thinking, and our practice should be based.