“There is no beginning to practice nor end to enlightenment; There is no beginning to enlightenment nor end to practice.”

When both body and mind are at peace, all things appear as they are: perfect, complete, lacking nothing.

In doing zazen it is desirable to have a quiet room. You should be temperate in eating and drinking, forsaking all delusive relationships. Setting everything aside, think of neither good nor evil, right nor wrong. Thus having stopped the various functions of your mind, five up even the idea of becoming a Buddha.

The recognition of the coming and going of things is a first step in training and practice.

Emptiness is bound to bloom, like hundreds of grasses blossoming.

But do not ask me where I am going, As I travel in this limitless world, Where every step I take is my home.

A flower falls, even though we love it; and a weed grows, even though we do not love it.

Enlightenment is intimacy with all things.

Life and death are of supreme importance. Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost. Each of us should strive to awaken. Awaken. Take heed, do not squander your life.

Coming, going, the waterbirds, don’t leave a trace, don’t follow a path.

What is the way of the Buddha? It is to study the self. What is the study of the self? It is to forget oneself. To forget oneself is to enlightened by everything in the world.

The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in one dewdrop on the grass.

Do not follow the ideas of others, but learn to listen to the voice within yourself. Your body and mind will become clear and you will realize the unity of all things.

Meditation is not a way to enlightenment, Nor is it a method of achieving anything at all. It is peace itself. It is the actualization of wisdom, The ultimate truth of the oneness of all things.

Do not travel to other dusty lands, forsaking your own sitting place; if you cannot find the truth where you are now, you will never find it.

The true person is Not anyone in particular; But like the deep blue color Of the limitless sky, It is everyone, Everywhere in the world.

No matter how bad a state of mind you may get into, if you keep strong and hold out, eventually the floating clouds must vanish and the withering wind must cease.

All’s well in the end, if you’ve only the patience to wait.

Only the luckless, the petty or the deranged [end] up in court.

In everything we ought to look at the end.

One should never pursue the hazards of fortune to their very ends andit behooves all adventurers to treat their good luck with reverence, neither bothering nor upsetting it.

It is best, if possible, to deceive no one; for he that begins by deceiving others, will end by deceiving himself.

I’ll never forget reading Chekhov’s “A Doctor’s Visit” on a train to Hawthorne, New York, and I got to the end

It is the dialogue that matters most, not its imagined end. It is the sacred act of inquiry wherein we gently trace the experienced outlines of an ever-greater whole.

Tragic heroes are failed pragmatists. Their ends are unrealistic and their means are impractical.