The mind is everything. What you think you become.

The purpose of our lives is to be happy, and happiness is found in benefiting others.

The practice of Buddhism is fundamentally a practice of expanding our happiness and diminishing our suffering.

To understand everything is to forgive everything.

Love is not a feeling. It's a capability.

The problem is not the problem; the problem is your attitude about the problem.

We can learn to be present with whatever is happening in our lives, and in this way, we can begin to transform our relationship to difficulty.

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

The purpose of meditation is not to create a mental vacuum but to come to know one's own mind.

Moment after moment, completely devote yourself to listening to your inner voice.

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

Breathing in, I calm body and mind. Breathing out, I smile.

The nature of mind is like a mirror. It is not affected by whatever appears in it, yet it never fails to reflect everything perfectly.

The path of awakening is not about becoming who we think we should be, but about unbecoming who we are not.

The essence of bravery is being without self-deception.

The teaching of the Buddha is based on two truths: conventional truth and ultimate truth. Without understanding the relationship between these two, the deeper meaning of the Buddha's teaching cannot be understood.

The zazen I speak of is not meditation practice. It is simply the dharma gate of joyful ease.

Genuine happiness comes from having developed basic human qualities, such as attention, emotional balance, and generosity.

When both body and mind are at peace, all things appear as they are: perfect, complete, lacking nothing.

The willingness to empty ourselves and then seek our true nature is an expression of great and courageous love.

The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.

The true path is not difficult; just avoid picking and choosing.

Rather than letting our negativity get the better of us, we could acknowledge that right now we feel like a piece of shit and not be squeamish about taking a good look.

The period of greatest gain in knowledge and experience is the most difficult period in one's life.

In the beginning, nothing comes, in the middle nothing stays, in the end nothing goes.

The instant you speak about a thing, you miss the mark.

The role of Zen is neither to stand above life nor to run away from it, but to face it with a spirit of determination.

The more you are motivated by love, the more fearless and free your actions will be.

The technique of self-observation is the technique of observing the reality about oneself at the experiential level.

The difference between buddhas and sentient beings is that buddhas recognize their nature while sentient beings fail to recognize it.

When you talk, you are only repeating what you already know. But if you listen, you may learn something new.

Each moment of clear seeing is a moment of freedom from the illusion of permanence, satisfaction, and self.

Mindfulness is attention to life, and life itself is sacred.