When you try to understand everything, you will not understand anything. The best way is to understand yourself, and then you will understand everything.

A tiger does not ignore or slight any small animal. The way he catches a mouse and catches and devours a cow are the same.

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

It is easy to have calmness in inactivity, it is hard to have calmness in activity, but calmness in activity is true calmness.

The practice of Zen mind is beginner's mind. The innocence of the first inquiry—what am I?—is needed throughout Zen practice. The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the expert, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all the possibilities. It is the kind of mind which can see things as they are, which step by step and in a flash can realize the original nature of everything.

Religion is not any particular teaching. Religion is everywhere.

All descriptions of reality are limited expressions of the world of emptiness. Yet we attach to the descriptions and think they are reality. That is a mistake.