Death is a stripping away of all that is not you. The secret of life is to “die before you die”—and find that there is no death.

And without music there can be no perfect knowledge, for there is nothing without it. For even the universe itself is said to have been put together with a certain harmony of sounds, and the very heavens revolve under the guidance of harmony.

Existence is no more than the precarious attainment of relevance in an intensely mobile flux of past, present, and future.

Gratitude is a universal human experience that can seem to be either a random occurrence of grace or a chosen attitude to create a better experience of life; in many ways it contains elements of both.

Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.

If, then, I were asked for the most important advice I could give, that which I considered to be the most useful to the men of our century, I should simply say: in the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.

In the cold, damp shelter of our primitive ancestors, lit only by the flickering of a campfire, at day’s end there was a time for recollection and stillness that would help to fuel the next day’s events. Since the beginning of human history, the still point has served as the birthplace of all our activity….

Set wide the window. Let me drink the day.

Let me say it again: the present moment is all you ever have.

It’s not doubt, but certainty which drives one mad.

To do great work a man must be very idle as well as very industrious.

A single breath has more truth in it than all your thoughts about breathing will ever have.

The mimosasa and the weeping willows. Beautiful strong nature. It takes me a long time to fall asleep.

Consider that we shouldn’t call our brother a fool, since we don’t know ourselves what we are.

If we sit quietly, making no effort, life expresses itself clearly; it simply happens on its own. There’s nothing else to get. The great truth is obvious. The heart beats; the breath comes and goes.

Creativity and ego cannot go together. If you free yourself from the comparing and jealous mind, your creativity opens up endlessly. Just as water springs from a fountain, creativity springs from every moment.

Happiness is simply to allow everything to be exactly as it is from moment to moment.

A rainy day is the perfect time for a walk in the woods.

Blessed influence of one true loving human soul on another! Not calculable by algebra, not deducible by logic, but mysterious, effectual, mighty as the hidden process by which the tiny seed is quickened, and bursts forth into tall stem and broad leaf, and glowing tasselled flower.

Human beings fall rather easily into the consciousness of purposeful action: “I want this, so I will go get it.” “I need this.” “I have to do that.” “If I don’t do this, something bad will happen and I will die.” Such is the basic murmur of mammalian consciousness. Spiritual practices (along with other basic…

Whoever is happy will make others happy too.

We rise again in the grass. In the flowers. In songs.

Wisdom is not a state to be achieved, but rather a state to be recalled…. You are every bit as wise as the Buddha, Aristotle, or Confucius—they have simply accessed places inside themselves where perhaps you have not yet journeyed.

What I wear is pants. What I do is live. How I pray is breathe.

Life is a peephole, a single tiny entry onto a vastness.

Soon I will find the right words, they will be very simply.

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.

We do not see that our life right here, right now, is nirvana. Maybe we think that nirvana is a place where there are no problems, no more delusions. Maybe we think nirvana is something very beautiful, something unattainable. We always think nirvana is something very different from our own life.

Zen pretty much comes down to three things—everything changes; everything is connected; pay attention.

Plants of great vigor will almost always struggle into blossom, despite impediments. But there should be encouragement, and a free genial atmosphere for those of more timid sort, fair play for each in its own kind.