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

Fear keeps us focused on the past or worried about the future. If we can acknowledge our fear, we can realize that right now we are okay.

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.

Mindfulness is the quality and power of mind that is aware of what's happening—without judgment and without interference.

You are your own teacher. Looking for teachers can't solve your own doubts. Investigate yourself to find the truth - inside, not outside.

Should a person do good, let him do it again and again. Let him find pleasure therein, for blissful is the accumulation of good.

Concentration develops naturally through continuous noting. Don't try to force concentration to arise.

The state of mind that exists when you sit in the right posture is, itself, enlightenment.

Every sensation shares the same characteristic - arising, passing. Arising, passing. Learn to observe objectively.

Let none find fault with others; let none see the omissions and commissions of others. But let one see one's own acts, done and undone.

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

The roots of all goodness lie in the soil of appreciation for goodness.

The greatest obstacle to meditation is our expectation about what it should be.

Peace in oneself, peace in the world.

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

No valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.

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

When you run after your thoughts, you are like a dog chasing a stick. Every time a stick is thrown, you run after it. Instead, be like a lion who, rather than chasing after the stick, turns to face the thrower.

When you generate negativity, you are the first victim of your negativity.

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

Problems that remain persistently insoluble should always be suspected as questions asked in the wrong way.

Right practice is steady practice. Whether you feel lazy or diligent, just keep practicing.

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

Awareness is like the sun. When it shines on things, they are transformed.

The mind creates the abyss, and the heart crosses it.

A good friend who points out mistakes and imperfections and rebukes evil is to be respected as if he reveals a secret of hidden treasure.

The goal of Buddhist practice is not to escape from the world but to transform our relationship with it.

The quality of every moment depends on the state of our minds.

Every small positive change we make in ourselves repays us in confidence in the future.

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.

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

The way is basically perfect. It is not a matter of practice or enlightenment.

The Buddha and all sentient beings are nothing but expressions of the one mind. There is nothing else.