When you do something, if you fix your mind on the activity with some confidence, the quality of your state of mind is the activity itself. When you are concentrated on the quality of your being, you are prepared for the activity.

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

To renounce things is not to give them up. It is to acknowledge that all things go away.

Because we cannot accept the truth of transience, we suffer.

The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the experts, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all possibilities.

The mind we have when we practice zazen is the great mind: we don't try to see anything; we stop conceptual thinking; we stop emotional activity; we just sit. Whatever happens to us, we are not bothered. We just sit. It is like something happening in the great sky. Whatever kind of bird flies through it, the sky doesn't care. That is the mind transmitted from Buddha to us.

In the Lotus Sutra, Buddha says to light up one corner - not the whole world. Just make it clear where you are.