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

Silence is so much more productive of wisdom and clarity than thinking.

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

Just as treasures are uncovered from the earth, so virtue appears from good deeds, and wisdom appears from a pure and peaceful mind.

Leave your front door and your back door open. Allow your thoughts to come and go. Just don't serve them tea.

People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth.

Meditation is not about escaping from difficulty but about meeting it with awareness.

Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.

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

When walking, just walk. When sitting, just sit. Above all, don't wobble.

The root of all suffering is ignorance. The antidote to ignorance is wisdom that realizes emptiness.

The color of the mountains is Buddha's body; the sound of running water is his great speech.

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

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

Change is possible because there is nothing inherently permanent about our disturbing emotions.

Though the view should be as vast as the sky, keep your conduct as fine as barley flour.

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

Expectations are the thieves of joy.

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

The farther you enter into truth, the deeper it is.

The practice of mindfulness begins in the small, remote cave of your unconscious mind and blossoms with the sunlight of your conscious life.

Wisdom says we are nothing. Love says we are everything. Between these two our life flows.

Vipassana is the art of living. Not the art of escaping.

Mindfulness is being aware of what is happening right now, without wishing it were different.

The path of practice requires both faith and wisdom, both devotion and understanding.

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

The only things that are truly mine are my actions and their results.

Wisdom is not about accumulating knowledge, but about seeing through all knowledge.

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

The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the expert, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all the possibilities.

There is no difference at all between samsara and nirvana. There is no difference at all between nirvana and samsara.

The cultivation of loving-kindness has the power to transform enmity into amity, hostility into hospitality.

There is no need to have a deep understanding of Zen. Even though you read much Zen literature, you must read each sentence with a fresh mind.