The true purpose of Zen is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes. Zen practice is to open up our small mind.

Leave your front door and your back door open. Allow your thoughts to come and go. Just don't serve them tea.

When you do something, you should burn yourself up completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.

Nothing outside yourself can cause any trouble. You yourself make the waves in your mind. If you leave your mind as it is, it will become calm. This mind is called big mind.

Treat every moment as your last. It is not preparation for something else.

If you can just appreciate each thing, one by one, then you will have pure gratitude. Even though you observe just one flower, that one flower includes everything

The most important point is to accept yourself and stand on your two feet.

Wherever you go you will find your teacher, as long as you have the eyes to see and the ears to hear.

As soon as you see something, you already start to intellectualize it. As soon as you intellectualize something, it is no longer what you saw.

It must be obvious...that there is a contradiction in wanting to be perfectly secure in a universe whose very nature is momentariness and fluidity.

When my master and I were walking in the rain, he would say, 'Do not walk so fast, the rain is everywhere.'

Among all the creatures of creation, the gods favor us: We are the only ones who can empathize with their problems.

Less thinking, more living.

Lesson one: expect to get screwed over for the convenience of others on a regular basis.

I made a list of people who needed just a little bit of money. And when the list was complete, there were 42 names. The total amount of money they needed was $27. I was shocked.

Certainly it's nice to have historic moments like this but eventually somebody will break this record. We're aiming for the end result, otherwise the rest is useless.

I'm going on an adventure!

I want to be an independent woman who falls in love, finds a great partner for her lifetime, has kids and kind of does it all. I'd like to have it all.

In the last 20, 22 years I have sung here very often and I have always felt the affection and warmth of the Italians, and I feel very close to you.

The source of joy is within yourself. Unless and until you seek yourself you cannot seek God.