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

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

Moment after moment, completely devote yourself to listening to your inner voice.

Without ignoring the objective side of the truth, it has to be subjective as well, Buddha's whole teaching just for you, something you can taste. Not something to believe in but to discover, to experience.

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.

In the beginner's mind there is no thought, "I have attained something." All self-centered thoughts limit our vast mind. When we have no thought of achievement, no thought of self, we are true beginners. Then we can really learn something. The beginner's mind is the mind of compassion. When our mind is compassionate, it is boundless. Dogen-zenji, the founder of our school, always emphasized how important it is to resume our boundless original mind. Then we are always true to ourselves, in sympathy with all beings, and can actually practice.

When something dies is the greatest teaching.