Time is three eyes and eight elbows.
The coming and going of birth and death is a painting. Unsurpassed enlightenment is a painting. The entire phenomenal universe and the empty sky are nothing but a painting.
Sitting is the gateway of truth to total liberation.
Enlightenment is intimacy with all things.
One must be deeply aware of the impermanence of the world.
Through one word, or seven words, or three times five, even if you investigate thoroughly myriad forms, nothing can be depended upon. Night advances, the moon glows and falls into the ocean. The black dragon jewel you have been searching for, is everywhere.
I asked, “What are words?” The tenzo said, “One, two, three, four, five.” I asked again, “What is practice?” “Nothing in the entire universe is hidden.”
Your body is like a dew-drop on the morning grass, your life is as brief as a flash of lightning. Momentary and vain, it is lost in a moment.
There is no beginning to practice nor end to enlightenment; There is no beginning to enlightenment nor end to practice.
An ancient buddha said, “Mountains are mountains; waters are waters.” These words do not mean mountains are mountains; they mean mountains are mountains.
There are myriads of forms and hundreds of grasses throughout the entire earth, yet each grass and each form itself is the entire earth.
Why abandon a seat in your own home to wander in vain through dusty regions of another land? If you make one false step, you miss what is right before your eyes.
Zazen is an activity that is an extension of the universe. Zazen is not the life of an individual, it’s the universe that’s breathing.
Do not be amazed by the true dragon.
When you paint Spring, do not paint willows, plums, peaches, or apricots, but just paint Spring. To paint willows, plums, peaches, or apricots is to paint willows, plums, peaches, or apricots – it is not yet painting Spring.
Mountains and oceans have whole worlds of innumerable wondrous features. We should understand that it is not only our distant surroundings that are like this, but even what is right here, even a single drop of water.
Do not view mountains from the scale of human thought.
What is reality? An icicle forming in fire.
Though it has no thought of keeping watch, it’s not for naught that the scarecrow stands in the grain field.
Be mindful of the passing of time, and engage yourself in zazen as though you are saving your head from fire.