The body moves naturally, automatically, without any personal intervention or awareness. If we think too much, our actions become slow and hesitant.

Think with your whole body.

Zen is not a particular state but the normal state: silent, peaceful, unagitated. In Zazen neither intention, analysis, specific effort nor imagination take place. It's enough just to be without hypocrisy, dogmatism, arrogance - embracing all opposites.

In a fight between a strong technique and a strong body, technique will prevail. In a fight between a strong mind and a strong technique, mind will prevail, because it will find the weak point.

If we achieve satori and the satori shows, like a bit of dogshit stuck to the top of our nose, that is not so good.

Think with the whole body.

Train the body and develop stamina and endurance. But the spirit of competition and power that presides over them is not good, it reflects a distorted vision of life. The root of the martial arts is not there.

We feel our shell keeps us safe, but it crushes us and others, and keeps out light and sun.

Harmonizing opposites by going back to their source is the distinctive quality of the Zen attitude, the Middle Way: embracing contradictions, making a synthesis of them, achieving balance.

From your first day at school you are cut off from life to make theories.

During zazen, brain and consciousness become pure. It's exactly like muddy water left to stand in a glass. Little by little, the sediment sinks to the bottom and the water becomes pure.

What is called zazen is sitting on a zafu [pillow] in a quiet room, absolutely still, in the exact and proper position and without uttering a word, the mind empty of any thought, good or wicked. It is continuing to sit peacefully, facing a wall, and nothing more. Every day.

The silence of the mountain is even more beautiful once the birds are quiet.

To receive everything, one must open one's hands and give.