Meditation is not about getting away from it all. It's about getting into it all.

Do not follow the ideas of others, but learn to listen to the voice within yourself.

Enlightenment is not about becoming something special, but about realizing what we already are.

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

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.

The only thing that we truly have control over is our attitude toward experience.

Trees, mountains, and vines all exist in nature according to their own truth. They are born and die following their nature. They remain this way because that's what they are. They don't practice meditation or do anything special.

Panic, anxiety, and stress are not obstacles to the practice. They are the path to wisdom and compassion.

Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.

Words have the power to both destroy and heal. When words are both true and kind, they can change our world.

Peace requires us to surrender our illusions of control.

All experiences are preceded by mind, led by mind, made by mind. Speak or act with a corrupted mind, and suffering follows as the wagon wheel follows the hoof of the ox.

All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.

May all beings be happy, be peaceful, be liberated.

True love is not for the faint-hearted.

When one sees with wisdom that all phenomena are empty of inherent existence, one is liberated from suffering.

Meditation is the road to happiness.

Conquer anger with non-anger. Conquer evil with good. Conquer stinginess with giving. Conquer deceit with truth.

As long as you seek for something, you will get the shadow of reality and not reality itself.

People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they're not on your road doesn't mean they've gotten lost.

The ultimate source of a happy life is warm-heartedness. This means extending to others the kind of concern we have for ourselves.

Start from where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.

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

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

Zazen is not step-by-step meditation. Rather it is simply the easy and pleasant practice of a Buddha, the realization of the Buddha's Wisdom.

Reality is only a Rorschach ink-blot, you know.

When we understand that peace is not dependent on external conditions, we can find it in the midst of any circumstance.

To carry yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion. That myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening.

Generosity generates its own enthusiasm. We don't have to force ourselves to be generous; we just need to start.

The path of awakening is not about becoming who you are. Rather it is about unbecoming who you are not.

Wisdom and compassion must be developed equally and harmoniously.

Understanding means throwing away your knowledge.

The practice of vipassana is the study of the self. When you study physical and mental phenomena, you are studying the truth about yourself.