Ego is a social institution with no physical reality. The ego is simply your symbol of yourself.

When you accept everything, everything is beyond dimensions. The earth is not great nor a grain of sand small. In the realm of Great Activity picking up a grain of sand is the same as taking up the whole universe. To save one sentient being is to save all sentient beings. Your efforts of this moment to save one person is the same as the eternal merit of Buddha.

We have to study with our warm heart, not just with our brain.

People say that practicing Zen is difficult, but there is a misunderstanding as to why. It is not difficult because it is hard to sit in the cross-legged position, or to attain enlightenment. It is difficult because it is hard to keep our mind pure and our practice pure in its fundamental sense.

You will always exist in the universe in one form or another.

We must exist right here, right now!

Hell is not punishment, it's training.

The way that helps will not be the same; it changes according to the situation.

You may say that things happen just by chance, but I don't feel that way.

People who know the state of emptiness will always be able to dissolve their problems by constancy.

For Zen students, a weed is a treasure. With this attitude, whatever you do, life becomes an art.

There are, strictly speaking, no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity.

Don't move. Just die over and over. Don't anticipate. Nothing can save you now because you have only this moment. Not even enlightenment will help you now because there are no other moments. With no future, be true to yourself and express yourself fully. Don't move.

You want to eliminate your evil desires in order to reveal your Buddha nature, but where will you throw them away?

Our practice should be based on the ideal of selflessness. Selflessness is very difficult to understand. If you try to be selfless, that is already a selfish idea. Selflessness will be there when you do not try anything.

Zazen practice is the direct expression of our true nature. Strictly speaking, for a human being, there is no other practice than this practice; there is no other way of life than this way of life.

Our tendency is to be interested in something that is growing in the garden, not in the bare soil itself. But if you want to have a good harvest, the most important thing is to make the soil rich and cultivate it well.

In reflecting on our problems, we should include ourselves.

There is no need to have a deep understanding of Zen.

When you do not realize that you are one with the river, or one with the universe, you have fear. Whether it is separated into drops or not, water is water. Our life and death are the same thing. When we realize this fact, we have no fear of death anymore.

If you want to enjoy the movie, you should know that it is the combination of film and light and white screen, and that the most important thing is to have a plain, white screen.

If you can just appreciate each thing, one by one, then you will have pure gratitude. Even though you observe just one flower, that one flower includes everything.

If you were not born in this world, there would be no need to die. To be born in this world is to die, to disappear [laughing].