Hakuin Quotes & Sayings

Should you desire the great tranquility, prepare to sweat. — Hakuin Ekaku

At the bottom of great doubt lies great awakening. If you doubt fully, you will awaken fully. — Hakuin Ekaku

What is this true meditation? It is to make everything: coughing, swallowing, waving the arms, motion, stillness, words, action, the evil and the good, prosperity and shame, gain and loss, right and wrong, into one single koan. — Hakuin Ekaku

At this moment, is there anything lacking? Nirvana is right here now before our eyes. This place is the lotus land. This body now is the Buddha. — Hakuin Ekaku

Underlying great doubt there is great satori, where there is thorough questioning there will be thoroughgoing experience of awakening. — Hakuin Ekaku

Great works of art in all cultures succeed in capturing within the constraints of their form both the pathos of anguish and a vision of its resolution. Take, for example, the languorous sentences of Proust or the haiku of Basho, the late quartets and sonatas of Beethoven, the tragicomic brushwork of Sengai or the daunting canvases of Rothko, the luminous self-portraits of Rembrandt and Hakuin. Such works achieve their resolution not through consoling or romantic images whereby anguish is transcended. They accept anguish without being overwhelmed by it. They reveal anguish as that which gives beauty its dignity and depth. — Stephen Batchelor

The spirit of meditation is the combating of self-willed thinking-it is a combat against the weight of one's feelings. — Hakuin Ekaku

Not knowing how near the truth is, we seek it far away. — Hakuin Ekaku

From the very beginning all beings are Buddha.
Like water and ice,without water no ice,
outside us no Buddhas. — Hakuin Ekaku

Contemplation within activity is a million times better than contemplation within stillness. — Hakuin Ekaku

Meditation in the midst of activity is a thousand times superior to meditation in stillness. — Hakuin Ekaku

I encourage all you superior seekers in the secret depths to devote yourselves to penetrating and clarifying the self, as earnestly as you would put out a fire on the top of your head. — Hakuin Ekaku

If only you could hear
the sound of snow — Hakuin Ekaku

From the sea of effortlessness, let your great uncaused compassion shine forth. — Hakuin Ekaku

All beings by nature are Buddhas, as ice by nature is water. Apart from water there is no ice; apart from beings, no Buddhas. — Hakuin Ekaku

What is the sound of one hand? — Hakuin Ekaku

Meditation in action is endlessly more important than meditation in stillness. — Hakuin Ekaku

You know the sound of two hands clapping; tell me, what is the sound of one hand? — Hakuin Ekaku

Once a person is able to achieve true singlemindedness in his practice and smash apart the old nest ... into which he has settled ... Wisdom immediately appears ... and the all-discerning Fivefold Eye opens wide. — Hakuin Ekaku

Nirvana is right here, before our eyes. — Hakuin Ekaku

It's like chopping down a huge tree of immense girth. You won't accomplish it with one swing of your axe. If you keep chopping away at it, though, and do not let up, eventually, whether it wants to or not, it will suddenly topple down. When that time comes, you could round up everyone you could find and pay them to hold the tree up, but they wouldn't be able to do it. It would still come crashing to the ground ... . But if the woodcutter stopped after one or two strokes of his axe to ask the third son of Mr. Chang, "Why doesn't this tree fall?" And after three or four more strokes stopped again to ask the fourth son of Mr. Li, "Why doesn't this tree fall?" he would never succeed in felling the tree. It is no different for someone who is practicing the Way. - ZEN MASTER HAKUIN — Robert Greene

If you forget yourself, you become the universe. — Hakuin Ekaku

How bright and transparent the moonlight of wisdom. — Hakuin Ekaku

In singing and dancing is the voice of the Law. — Hakuin Ekaku

A soldier 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 samurai!" exclaimed Hakuin. "What kind of ruler would have you as his guard? Your face looks like that of a beggar!"

The soldier became so angry that he began to draw his sword, but Hakuin continued. "So you have a sword! Your weapon is probably as dull as your head!"

As the soldier drew his sword Hakuin remarked "Here open the gates of hell!"

At these words, the samurai, perceiving the discipline of the master, sheathed his sword and bowed.

"Here open the gates of paradise," said Hakuin — Hakuin Ekaku