To cook is not just to prepare food for someone or to cook for yourself; it is to express your sincerity. So when you cook you should express yourself in your activity in the kitchen. You should allow yourself plenty of time.
Nothing we see or hear is perfect. But right there in the imperfection is perfect reality.
Usually when someone believes in a particular religion, his attitude becomes more and more a sharp angle pointing away from himself. In our way the point of the angle is always toward ourselves.
The way that helps will not be the same; it changes according to the situation.
If you think you will get something from practicing zazen, already you are involved in impure practice.
Our way is to practice one step at a time, one breath at a time, with no gaining idea.
You will always exist in the universe in one form or another.
Zen is not some fancy, special art of living. Our teaching is just to live, always in reality, in its exact sense. To make our effort, moment after moment, is our way.
When we become truly ourselves, we just become a swinging door, and we are purely independent of, and at the same time, dependent upon everything.
You can’t make a date with enlightenment.
The goal of our life’s effort is to reach the other shore, Nirvana. Prajna paramita, the true wisdom of life, is that in each step of the way, the other shore is actually reached.
Our mind should be free from traces of the past, just like the flowers of spring.
We have to study with our warm heart, not just with our brain.
So it is not a matter of whether it is possible to attain Buddhahood, or if it is possible to make a tile a jewel. But just to work, just to live in this world with this understanding is the most important point, and that is our practice. That is true zazen.
When you try to understand everything, you will not understand anything. The best way is to understand yourself, and then you will understand everything.
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.
Life and death are the same thing. When we realize this fact, we have no fear of death anymore, nor actual difficulty in our life.
When you do something, if you fix your mind on the activity with some confidence, the quality of your state of mind is the activity itself. When you are concentrated on the quality of your being, you are prepared for the activity.
A Master who cannot bow to a disciple cannot bow to Buddha.
You should rather be grateful for the weeds you have in your mind, because eventually they will enrich your practice.