To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don't grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.

True happiness is not about getting rid of all our problems, but about changing our relationship to them.

The highest truth cannot be taught except through the conventional truth.

The mind is like a room with many windows. Open them all and let the fresh air in.

The purpose of our lives is to be happy.

When we understand others, we understand ourselves. When we love others, we love ourselves.

To think in terms of either pessimism or optimism oversimplifies the truth. The problem is to see reality as it is.

Short moments, many times. That is the essence of meditation practice.

The five aggregates are not a theoretical model but a description of lived experience to be investigated through mindfulness.

Self-awareness is the key to freedom. The more we understand ourselves, the more we understand how to be free.

When we get too caught up in the busyness of the world, we lose connection with one another – and ourselves.

To live – is that not enough? To love – is that not everything?

Our task is to learn to see clearly what is happening in each moment, rather than be lost in our reactions and judgments.

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.

In the spiritual world there are no time divisions such as the past, present and future; for they have contracted themselves into a single moment of the present where life quivers in its true sense.

Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively.

True freedom is a freedom from the tyranny of our own thoughts and afflictive emotions.

There are only two days in the year that nothing can be done. One is called yesterday and the other is called tomorrow, so today is the right day to love, believe, do and mostly live.

Both formerly and now, it is only suffering that I describe, and the cessation of suffering.

The practice of metta begins with oneself, for only when we have developed loving-kindness towards ourselves can we truly offer it to others.

Smile, breathe, and go slowly.

Study the Buddha's teaching which is present in every moment.

The Buddha never taught a sectarian religion; he taught Dhamma - the way to liberation - which is universal.

The essence of Buddhist practice is to reduce our selfishness and to work for the benefit of others.

When we know the truth, we become people who don't have to think much, we become people with wisdom.

Suffering comes from our resistance to what is. Peace comes from our acceptance of what is.

To be attached to a thing means that mind and the thing meet and grow into each other.

Fear keeps us focused on the past or worried about the future. If we can acknowledge our fear, we can realize that right now we are okay.

Our true nature is like a diamond - pure, brilliant, and indestructible. No matter how much dirt covers it, its essential nature remains unchanged.

The mind is the source of all happiness and the source of all suffering.

Meditation is like a gym in which you develop the powerful mental muscles of calm and insight.

Understanding means throwing away your knowledge.

Change is the nature of every phenomenon. Accept this truth and you will live a happy life.