“Learn the backward step that turns your light inward to illuminate your self. Body and mind of themselves will drop away, and your original face will be manifest.”

If you do not get it from yourself, where will you go for it?

Students, when you want to say something, think about it three times before you say it. Speak only if your words will benefit yourselves and others. Do not speak if it brings no benefit.

When you walk in the mist, you get wet.

When you paint Spring, do not paint willows, plums, peaches, or apricots – just paint Spring.

Just practice good, do good for others, without thinking of making yourself known so that you may gain reward. Really bring benefit to others, gaining nothing for yourself. This is the primary requisite for breaking free of attachments to the Self.

In a mind clear as still water, even the waves, breaking, are reflecting its light.

To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by the ten thousand things.

You should study not only that you become a mother when your child is born, but also that you become a child.

Those who seek the easy way do not seek the true way.

Do not be amazed by the true dragon.

Practice and enlightenment are not two.

Do not doubt that mountains walk simply because they may not appear to walk like humans.

If you want to see things just as they are, then you yourself must practice just as you are.

Those who see worldly life as an obstacle to Dharma see no Dharma in everyday actions. They have not yet discovered that there are no everyday actions outside of Dharma.

There are mountains hidden in mountains. There are mountains hidden in hiddenness. This is complete understanding.

In the stream, Rushing past To the dusty world, My fleeting form Casts no reflection.

When you’ve seen a nude infant doing a backward somersault you know why clothing exists.

They are walking on their pants with their cap on backward, listening to the Enema Man and Snoopy, Snoopy Poop Dog.

I had to be a grown-up when I should have been a little boy, and now that I’m a grown-up my little-boyness has exploded out of me. I’ve lived my life backwards.

Nowadays, anyone who cannot speak English and is incapable of using the Internet is regarded as backward.

In life you are either growing or rotting. You’re moving forward or backwards; there is no standing still.

The Dharma Path is to keep walking forward. But the true Dharma has no going forward, no going backward, and no standing still.

Take one step backward into the unknown.

It’s like the mountains, the ocean and the rivers. It has its own geological forms. Societies cannot be flat. But during change, human rights, human dignity and free speech have to be protected. Otherwise, we’ll be going backward.