Today there is no one who does truly great deeds, either good or bad. This makes me very lonely. Come on, great one, get born!

Wherever I look and whoever I see, everyone shows such a clever face; yet they all have such dull, vacant eyes.

You hear it said that a Buddhist Abbot should be the model for all his priests. This is a preposterous statement. Why should I accept any other human being as a model? As long as humans are human and not gelatin --dammit!--there is no model! Regardless of whether the abbot believes in faith healing or fishing or playing with a geisha girl, what's the matter with it? There's nothing wrong with it, is there? Even the abbot-he's still an ordinary person, isn't he? It's wrong to treat him as if he were not, as if he were different from the common man, to be covered over with gold leaf like a living Buddha.

If the abbot is tied down by the idea: "I am the Abbot," then he is pure business man. Without caring about these things, be a human being, live it. That is what is delightful and admirable, don't you agree?

If a person understands things as they really are, then whatever he does is all right. If he does not understand things as they are, then whatever he does, regardless, is worthless. A thief who has a straightforward mind is more worthy of respect than a person who simply copies the deeds of the clever. Because I can spit on the artificial wise man, I want to shake hands with the thief who is himself.

Those ghost-like people who always see dead things only, naturally cannot understand living things.

Among the so-called "really famous" ministers or scholars or experts, there are so many worthless human beings. If they have the saleskit, then they might be very good religious businessmen, but it looks as though none of them can understand even one word of what they are talking about.

At the headquarters of every different sect, people are making noise about how to establish the Teaching, how to preach. If to advertise patent medicine is to establish the Teaching, then what they are doing is establishing the Teaching. If to promote toothpaste and chewing gum is to establish the Teaching, then what they are doing is establishing the Teaching. Indeed, what kind of teaching are they trying to establish and to whom dothey think they are preaching it? They have not even once cried out with the sadness of the human spirit. It's ridiculous that such people should get together and make noise about how to establish the Teaching.

In Christianity as well, there is no great man. There are only Merchants of religion. They maneuver so excellently, but there is no man among them who has anything of God in him.

With money we can build a temple, but not religion. It is a fatuous propagation that is successful only in the mood of the propagandist.

In this world, the most pitiful of all creatures are monks, ministers, and teachers. They cannot-even sing a song in a loud voice. They cannot even feel the glow of the drink when they take a glass of wine.

In this world, monks, ministers and teachers are the mosthateful. Not only do they delude society and people: they delude even themselves. I long to meet a monk who is not like monks, a minister who is not like ministers, a teacher who is not like teachers.

That person who is called "obedient" by society is one who has never accepted the teaching with all his heart from another human being, nor respected that other person from the bottom of his heart—yet listen to him shout how important the "teaching" is.

That person who is called "cold and arrogant" always under stands others' opinions from the bottom of his heart and genuinely respects others from the bottom of his heart—it is this man who shouts, "Don't follow the teaching blindly!"

How very interesting to listen to a person say: "Oh, I'm doing this for the sake of the Teaching, not for my own sake," when of course he's doing it for his own sake.

It's so ridiculous and pathetic. Society is very easy to cheat, isn't it? A man is termed "wise man" by society even when he is cheating it.

In the world of politics, a great revolution must come.

In the world of thought, a great revolution must come.

In the world of religion, a great revolution must come.

In Japan today there is nothing. It's interesting.

Let's take action with all our heart.

One of these people said to me: "When I recite Nembutsu, I really get a load off my chest." I replied, "I really get a load off my chest when I make wind." You people who peddle the benefits of reciting the Nembutsu, why don't you at the same time peddle the benefits of making wind?