True love is not for the faint-hearted.

Enlightenment is not about becoming divine. Instead, it's about becoming more fully human.

Leave your front door and your back door open. Allow your thoughts to come and go. Just don't serve them tea.

The mind is everything. What you think, you become.

The greatest achievement is selflessness. The greatest worth is self-mastery.

The mind is the forerunner of all things. Our present life is the result of our past thoughts, and our future life will be the result of our present thoughts.

In Zen there must be satori; there must be a general mental upheaval which destroys the old accumulations of intellection and lays down the foundation for a new life.

The more you are motivated by love, the more fearless and free your actions will be.

Real freedom is not about controlling our experience, but about being free within our experience.

Recognize the emptiness of all phenomena, but do not become attached to emptiness itself.

Every step on the path must be with the understanding of anicca - impermanence. This is the essence of the teaching.

Meditation practice isn't about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It's about befriending who we are already.

Should you desire the great tranquility, prepare to sweat white beads.

The best way to control people is to encourage them to be mischievous. Then they will be in control in a wider sense.

The measure of success in spiritual life is how peaceful you are.

If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher.

The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the expert, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all the possibilities.

What Zen wants us to do is to acquire an entirely new point of view whereby to look into the mysteries of life and the secrets of nature.

Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them.

The mind of the past is ungraspable; the mind of the future is ungraspable; the mind of the present is ungraspable.

Our defilements are like tame tigers. If you feed them, they're tame. If you stop feeding them, they'll eat you up.

Life is like an ever-shifting kaleidoscope - a slight change, and all patterns alter.

When we are mindful, deeply in touch with the present moment, our understanding of what is going on deepens, and we begin to be filled with acceptance, joy, peace and love.

Compassion is not a sign of weakness but a sign of strength.

Concentration develops naturally through continuous noting. Don't try to force concentration to arise.

Because you are alive, everything is possible.

Do everything with a mind that lets go. Don't accept praise or gain or anything else. If you let go a little, you will have a little peace; if you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace.

The instant you speak about a thing, you miss the mark.

When both body and mind are at peace, all things appear as they are: perfect, complete, lacking nothing.

Your mind is like a garden. Your thoughts are the seeds. You can grow flowers or you can grow weeds.

Compassion is the radicalism of our time.

Every being has the potential of becoming a Buddha. Our true nature is Buddha nature.

As a flower that is lovely and beautiful, but is scentless, even so fruitless is the well-spoken word of one who does not practice it.