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

Worship means reverence and humility it means revering your real self and humbling delusions.

The Way is basically perfect. It doesn’t require perfecting.

I never lost or fail, not yet conquered. If I fall seven times, I get up eight

The mind is the Buddha, and the Buddha is the mind.

And the Buddha is the person who’s free: free of plans, free of cares.

But while success and failure depend on conditions, the mind neither waxes nor wanes.

Externally keep yourself away from all relationships, and internally have no pantings in your heart; when your mind is like unto a straight-standing wall, you may enter into the Path.

If you see your nature, you don’t need to read sutras or invoke buddhas. Erudition and knowledge are not only useless but also cloud your awareness. Doctrines are only for pointing to the mind. Once you see your mind, why pay attention to doctrines?

Not thinking about anything is zen. Once you know this, walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, everything you do is zen. To know that the mind is empty is to see the buddha…. Using the mind to reality is delusion. Not using the mind to look for reality is awareness. Freeing oneself from words is liberation.

The Dharma is the truth that all natures are pure.

If your mind is pure, all buddha-lands are pure.

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.

To give up yourself without regret is the greatest charity.

If you use your mind to look for a Buddha, you won’t see the Buddha.

To have a body is to suffer.

The mind is always present. You just don’t see it.

I would never have had if I’d been fool enough to make them do what I thought they should do.

Only a fool wants war, but once a war starts then it cannot be fought half-heartedly. It cannot even be fought with regret, but must be waged with a savage joy in defeating the enemy, and it is that savage joy that inspires our bards to write their greatest songs about love and war.

Our problem in money-making or government affairs is how to remain properly venturesome and experimental without making fools of ourselves.

All the gang of those who rule us Hope our quarrels never stop Helping them to split and fool us So they can remain on top.

A philospher sees the Earth as a large planet, travelling through the heavens, covered with fools

Fortune, that favors fools.

As for the accusation of intellectual pride, surely the boot is on the other foot. Atheists don’t claim to know anything with certainty — it’s the believers who know it all.

The most annoying of all blockheads is a well-read fool.