“Activities such as chanting, bowing, and sitting in zazen are not at all wasted, even when done merely formally, for even this superficial encounter with the Dharma will have some wholesome outcome...”

“The object of Zen is not to kill all feelings and become anesthetized to pain and fear. The object of Zen is to free us to scream loudly and fully when it is time to scream.”

“Can the water in the valleys ever stop and rest?When the water finally reaches the sea, it becomes great waves.”

“The prospect of future lives in remote heavens as a compensation for the inadequacy of our present lives is a bad tradeoff for losing out on the present.”

“Not till your thoughts cease all their branching here and there, not till you abandon all thoughts of seeking for something, not till your mind is motionless as wood or stone, will you be on the ri...”

“We are fragmented into so many different aspects. We dont know who we really are, or what aspects of ourselves we should identify with or believe in. So many contradictory voices, dictates, and fee...”

“Devote the mind to confusion and we know only too well, if were honest, that it will become a dark master of confusion, adept in its addictions, subtle and perversely supple in its slaveries. Devot...”

“Not being tense but ready.Not thinking but not dreaming.Not being set but flexible.Liberation from the uneasy sense of confinement.It is being wholly and quietly alive, aware and alert, ready for w...”

“...it's like this. Sometimes, when you've a very long street ahead of you, you think how terribly long it is and feel sure you'll never get it swept. And then you start to hurry. You work faster an...”

“It's like you took a bottle of ink and you threw it at a wall. Smash! And all that ink spread. And in the middle, it's dense, isn't it? And as it gets out on the edge, the little droplets get finer...”