When you note pain, you are not trying to make it go away. You are trying to understand its true nature.

Suffering is not the end of the story; it is the middle of the story.

The practice of ethics is not about following rules but about developing inner purity and freedom.

Better to have one moment of genuine meditation than to perform religious activities for a thousand years.

The practice is not about achieving special states but about seeing ordinary experience with extraordinary clarity.

The ultimate purpose of Buddhism is to serve and benefit humanity.

What we call "I" is just a swinging door which moves when we inhale and when we exhale.

If you want to know your past life, look into your present condition; if you want to know your future life, look into your present actions.

Every moment is a fresh beginning. Every breath is a new chance.

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 development of wisdom does not occur in isolation but requires the cultivation of the entire Noble Eightfold Path.

Wherever you are, you are one with the clouds and one with the sun and the stars you see. You are one with everything. That is more true than I can say, and more true than you can hear.

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

The purpose of meditation is not to create a mental vacuum but to come to know one's own mind.

The truth of Zen is the truth of life, and life means to live, to move, to act, not merely to reflect.

Breathing in, I calm body and mind. Breathing out, I smile.

Life is available only in the present moment.

Enlightenment is the realization that we were never really separate from one another or from all of life.

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

Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

When dharma fills your body and mind, you realize that something is missing.

When mindfulness is weak, defilements are strong; when mindfulness is strong, defilements are weak.

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

Neither from itself nor from another, nor from both, nor without a cause, does anything whatever, anywhere arise.

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

The practice of mindfulness is the practice of being alive in the present moment.

The most important factor in achieving happiness is the mind. Happiness and suffering are mental states and therefore depend on the mind.

The planet does not need more successful people. The planet desperately needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of all kinds.

The practice of Zen is forgetting the self in the act of uniting with something.

Each moment of noting is a moment of purification, a moment of cultivating the path.

What you are is what you have been. What you'll be is what you do now.

The force of the kindness of others is so strong, we can't possibly measure it.

Altruism is not a luxury, it is a necessity for the survival of humanity.