Meditation practice isn't about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It's about befriending who we are already.

Enlightenment is not the end of change but the end of resistance to change.

The nature of mind is the unity of awareness and emptiness.

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

When you recognize that pain and suffering are impermanent, you become free.

There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting.

In the moment of anger, abandon anger but not the person. In the moment of attachment, abandon attachment but not the person.

The more precisely you note, the more clearly you understand. The more clearly you understand, the stronger your insight becomes.

Be a lamp unto yourself. Work out your liberation with diligence.

The five aggregates are not a theoretical model but a description of lived experience to be investigated through mindfulness.

The key to happiness is inner peace. The greatest obstacles to inner peace are disturbing emotions such as anger, attachment, fear and suspicion.

My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.

The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.

When we attempt to exercise power or control over someone else, we cannot avoid giving that person the very same power or control over us.

At the bottom of great doubt lies great awakening. If you doubt fully, you will awaken fully.

Meditation is not about trying to change ourselves. Meditation is about being aware of what is.

When you note effectively, there is no time for defilements to arise. The mind becomes pure through noting.

The rising and falling of the abdomen is not the main object. The main object is to develop mindfulness, concentration, and insight.

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

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

The ultimate source of happiness is not money and power, but warm-heartedness.

Mindfulness helps you go home to the present. And every time you go there and recognize a condition of happiness that you have, happiness comes.

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

Happiness is found in the simplest of things. It is not in the things you own, but in the love you share.

Understanding at the intellectual level is not enough. There must be experience at the actual level.

Those who understand interdependent origination understand suffering, its origin, its cessation, and the path.

The archer ceases to be conscious of himself as the one who is engaged in hitting the bull's-eye which confronts him. This state of unconsciousness is realized only when, completely empty and rid of the self, he becomes one with the perfecting of his technical skill.

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

Meditation is not an escape from life but a way to fully engage with life.

The purpose of meditation is to gain right understanding of the true nature of mental and physical phenomena.

The only way to fail at meditation is to stop doing it.

The Noble Eightfold Path is a path of training: training in ethical conduct, training in mental discipline, and training in wisdom.

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