A Zen master named Gisan asked a young student to bring him a pail of — Zen proverbs

"A soldier named Nobushige came to Hakuin, and asked: "Is there really a paradise and a hell?" "Who are you?" inquired Hakuin. "I am a samurai," the warrior replied. "You, a soldier!" exclaimed Hakuin. "What kind of ruler would have you as his guard? Your face looks like that of a beggar." Nobushige became so angry that he began to draw his sword, but Hakuin continued: "So you have a sword! Your weapon is probably much too dull to cut off my head." As Nobushige drew his sword Hakuin remarked: "Here open the gates of hell!" At these words the samurai, perceiving the masters discipline, sheathed his sword and bowed. "Here open the gates of paradise," said Hakuin."

"No snowflake ever falls in the wrong place."

"Not the wind, not the flag; mind is moving."

"When you reach the top of the mountain, keep climbing."

"Coming empty-handed, going empty-handed, that is human. When you are born, where do you come from? When you die, where do you go? Life is like a floating cloud which appears. Death is like a floating cloud which disappears. The floating cloud itself originally does not exist. Life and death, coming and going, are also like that. But there is one thing which always remains clear. It is pure and clear, not depending on life and death. Then what is the one pure and clear thing?"

"The Layman was sitting in his thatched cottage one day studying the sutras "Difficult, difficult," he said; "like trying to scatter ten measures of sesame seed all over a tree" "Easy, easy," Mrs Pang said; "like touching your feet to the ground when you get out of bed" "Neither difficult nor easy," Ling Zhao said; "on the hundred grass tips, the great Masters meaning"