If you have a glass full of liquid you can discourse forever on its qualities, discuss whether it is cold, warm, whether it is really and truly composed of H-2-O, or even mineral water, or saki. Meditation is Drinking it!

Human beings are afraid of dying. They are always running after something: money, honor, and pleasure. But if you had to die now, what would you want?

Nobody today is normal, everybody is a little bit crazy or unbalanced, people's minds are running all the time. Their perceptions of the world are partial, incomplete. They are eaten alive by their egos. They think they see, but they are mistaken; all they do is project their madness, their world, upon the world. There is no clarity, no wisdom in that!

Descartes said, "I think, therefore I am." I say, "I do not think, that is why I exist."

The silence of the mountain is even more beautiful once the birds are quiet.

Zen is not a particular state but the normal state: silent, peaceful, unagitated. In Zazen neither intention, analysis, specific effort nor imagination take place. It's enough just to be without hypocrisy, dogmatism, arrogance - embracing all opposites.

We feel our shell keeps us safe, but it crushes us and others, and keeps out light and sun.