Past thoughts are traceless, clear, and empty. Future thoughts are unborn and fresh. The present moment abides naturally and unconstructed.

You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.

Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.

Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.

The first noble truth of the Buddha is that life contains suffering. The second noble truth is that the cause of suffering is craving.

The nature of everything is illusory and ephemeral, those with dualistic perception regard suffering as happiness, like they who lick the honey from a razor's edge.

Ardently do today what must be done. Who knows? Tomorrow, death comes.

When you practice zazen you should not try to attain anything. You should just sit in the complete calmness of your mind and not rely on anything.

The goal of meditation is not to achieve a blank mind, but to gain insight into the nature of mind itself.

The path to liberation is a gradual path of self-discipline, self-development, and self-transformation.

Each moment of mindfulness is a moment of purification.

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

The four foundations of mindfulness are not separate practices but different aspects of the same practice of clear awareness.

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

Happiness is a skill that can be developed like playing an instrument or learning to read.

Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water. The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken.

Appearances are mind, mind itself is emptiness, emptiness itself is spontaneous presence.

The art of living... is neither careless drifting on the one hand nor fearful clinging to the past on the other. It consists in being sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive.

The most important things in our practice are our physical posture and our way of breathing.

Anger or hatred is like a fisherman's hook. It is very important for us to ensure that we are not caught by it.

We don't set out to save the world; we set out to wonder how other people are doing and to reflect on how our actions affect other people's hearts.

Peace requires us to surrender our illusions of control.

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. If you let go completely, you will have complete peace.

The practice of mindfulness is simply to bring awareness to what we are doing, what we are saying, and what we are thinking.

The truth of suffering is not to be feared but to be understood through direct observation.

A flower falls, even though we love it; and a weed grows, even though we do not love it.

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

Life is an art, and like perfect art it should be self-forgetting.

If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?

If you want to understand suffering, you must look into the situation at hand. The teachings say that wherever a problem arises it must be settled right there.

Each decision we make, each action we take, is born out of an intention.

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

Worry pretends to be necessary but serves no useful purpose.