The essence of all phenomena is empty and clear like space. The nature of mind is awareness-emptiness like the sun and sky.

When we develop patience, we find that we develop a reserve of calm and tranquility.

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

The practice of meditation is like tuning an instrument. Too tight, and the strings break. Too loose, and they won't play.

Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.

Where ignorance is our master, there is no possibility of real peace.

The essence of the teaching is emptiness and compassion. Without emptiness, compassion can become attachment. Without compassion, emptiness can become cold and distant.

In true vipassana practice, there is no room for likes and dislikes. There is only observation.

The key to transformation is not to fight with our experience but to open to it with awareness.

In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.

The true hero is one who conquers his own anger and hatred.

In the moment of love, awareness is very strong. Use that awareness, that strength of consciousness, to look into yourself.

If you want to know the past, look at the present. If you want to know the future, look at the present.

The practice of patience guards us against losing our presence of mind.

The ultimate revolution is the spiritual revolution, where we learn to see reality as it truly is.

When you realize how perfect everything is, you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky.

Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is relax.

To be in harmony with the wholeness of things is not to have anxiety over imperfection.

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

The door of your heart can only be opened from the inside.

What we learn about the world is colored by the way we approach it.

Choose to be optimistic, it feels better.

Whatever is happening is the path to enlightenment.

Observe the reality as it is, not as you wish it to be.

To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.

The purpose of a spiritual discipline is to give us a way to stop the war, not by our force of will, but through understanding and through letting go.

The great gift of meditation is that it returns us to the simplicity of our own being.

The nature of everything is empty and clear, and the mind is beyond both existence and nonexistence.

Since all things are empty of inherent existence, anything is possible. If things had inherent existence, nothing would be possible.

True peace is found not in the absence of experience but in the clear seeing of all experience.

Concentration and insight are like two wings of a bird: both are necessary for the flight to liberation.

Like a dream, like an illusion, like a city of gandharvas, that's how birth, and that's how living, that's how dying are taught to be.

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.