If we should be blessed by some great reward, such as fame or fortune, it's the fruit of a seed planted by us in the past.

Delusion means mortality. And awareness means Buddhahood.

When you don't understand, you depend on reality. When you do understand, reality depends on you.

The Way is basically perfect. It doesn't require perfecting. The Way has no form or sound. It's subtle and hard to perceive. It's like when you drink water: you know how hot or cold it is, but you can't tell others.

And as long as you're subject to birth and death, you'll never attain enlightenment.

Not thinking about anything is Zen. Once you know this, walking, sitting, or lying down, everything you do is Zen.

If you use your mind to study reality, you won't understand either your mind or reality. If you study reality without using your mind, you'll understand both. . . . The mind and the world are opposites, and vision arises where they meet. When your mind doesn't stir inside, the world doesn't arise outside. When the world and the mind are both transparent, this is true vision. And such understanding is true understanding.

When mortals are alive, they worry about death. When they're full, they worry about hunger. Theirs is the Great Uncertainty. But sages don't consider the past. And they don't worry about the future. Nor do they cling to the present. And from moment to moment they follow the Way.

Everything sacred, nothing sacred.

You can't know your real mind as long as you deceive yourself.

The Buddha is your real body, your original mind.

As mortals, we're ruled by conditions, not by ourselves.

People who don't see their own nature and imagine they can practice thoughtlessness all the time are liars and fools.

The ignorant mind, with its infinite afflictions, passions, and evils, is rooted in the three poisons. Greed, anger, and delusion.

Not creating delusions is enlightenment.

The mind is the root from which all things grow. If you can understand the mind, everything else is included.

Once you stop clinging and let things be, you'll be free, even of birth and death. You'll transform everything.

Reality has no inside, outside, or middle part.

When we're deluded there's a world to escape. When we're aware, there's nothing to escape.

This one life has no form and is empty by nature. If you become attached by any form, you should reject it. If you see an ego, a soul, a birth, or a death, reject them all.

to suffer. To seek nothing is bliss.

Regardless of what we do, our karma has no hold on us.

Don't hate life and death or love life and death. Keep your every thought free of delusion, and in life you'll witness the beginning of nirvana, and in death you'll experience the assurance of no rebirth.