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

Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it.

Forgiveness is not a moral issue. It's a power issue. When we hold onto grievance and resentment, we are giving our power away.

When we look directly at our thoughts, they dissolve like bubbles in water.

The way to overcome anger is to be too busy being kind to have time to be angry.

The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.

The whole path of mindfulness is about letting go. We let go of our attachment to our views, our attachment to our opinions, our attachment to our ideas.

The mind is like a wild monkey, jumping here and there. But through meditation, we learn to see whatever arises in our mind with more spaciousness and clarity.

True freedom is a freedom from the tyranny of our own thoughts and afflictive emotions.

When we see the nature of the mind, we see that we are not our thoughts.

Start from where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.

We need to learn to let our emotions pass through us like waves, without getting caught in their undertow.

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

The object of meditation and the mind which knows it must be noted as they occur. If they are not noted, desire arises and disturbs concentration.

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

If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything.

Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I would like to see you living in better conditions.

The secret of happiness lies not in getting what we want, but in learning to want what we already have.

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.

When things fall apart and we're on the verge of we know not what, the test of each of us is to stay on that brink and not concretize.

Only when you can be extremely pliable and soft can you be extremely hard and strong.

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

Meditation is like a gym in which you develop the powerful mental muscles of calm and insight.

We do not "come into" this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree.

The mind is the source of all happiness and the source of all suffering.

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

The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves, is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently.

The only thing that we truly have control over is our attitude toward experience.

Only one book is worth reading: the heart.

The true mark of a spiritual practitioner is that your own behavior is better, not that you can criticize others well.

Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

Sometimes one creates a dynamic impression by saying something, and sometimes one creates as significant an impression by remaining silent.

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

The highest mantra is to be without deception. The highest medicine is to have few desires. The highest meditation is not to be attached.

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

We deal with our mind from morning until evening, and it can be our best friend or our worst enemy.

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

The everyday practice is simply to develop complete acceptance and openness to all situations and emotions.

Expectations are the thieves of joy.

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

Technical knowledge is not enough. One must transcend techniques so that the art becomes an artless art, growing out of the unconscious.

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

The cave I live in is empty and so is my mind. I live simply and at ease.

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

We practice to learn how to let go, not how to increase our holding on to things.

Hope and fear come from feeling that we lack something; they come from a sense of poverty. We can't simply relax with ourselves. We hold on to hope, and hope robs us of the present moment.

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

Every intelligent individual wants to know what makes him tick, and yet is at once fascinated and frustrated by the fact that oneself is the most difficult of all things to know.

Equanimity is not indifference. It is the balanced state of mind.

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

Do everything with a mind that lets go. Don't accept praise or gain or anything else. If you let go a little, you will have a little peace; if you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace.

Whatever we do, we should see ourselves. Reading books doesn't show us our defilements. Watch yourself. Watch your mind.

When the heart is still, it can be kind. When the mind is still, it can see clearly.

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

When you are you, Zen is Zen. Big mind is just big mind.

Through understanding emptiness, one does not become proud of one's virtues, just as one does not become proud of building a castle in the sky.

Understanding means throwing away your knowledge.

The mind is like water. When it's turbulent, it's difficult to see. When it's calm, everything becomes clear.

Anxiety and excitement are the same emotion. The only difference is our attitude toward the experience.