In a mind clear as still water, even the waves, breaking, are reflecting its light.

Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.

The purpose of a spiritual discipline is to give us a way to stop the war, not by our force of will, but through understanding and through letting go.

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

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

Reality is only a Rorschach ink-blot, you know.

The greatest achievement is selflessness. The greatest worth is self-mastery.

Give the ones you love wings to fly, roots to come back, and reasons to stay.

The Buddha's teaching is not a philosophy or a religion; it is a method of practice.

Look at situations from all angles, and you will become more open.

Concentration is a cornerstone of mindfulness practice. Your mindfulness will only be as robust as your capacity to ground your attention in the present moment.

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.

In the gap between thoughts, nonconceptual wisdom shines continuously.

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

All that appears and exists, all of samsara and nirvana, has one ground, two paths, and two results. This is the magical display of awareness and unawareness.

When thoughts arise, recognize them as the display of your own awareness, like recognizing your own children in a crowd.

The great gift of meditation is that it returns us to the simplicity of our own being.

Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.

External phenomena are like a dream, whatever appears is not real. Recognize the nature of dream-like phenomena to be dream-like.

The nature of mind is clearer than the sky, yet we keep looking elsewhere.

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

The Buddha's teachings are not a religion, but a science of mind.

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

The contradiction so puzzling to the ordinary way of thinking comes from the fact that we have to use language to communicate our inner experience, which in its very nature transcends linguistics.

Ardently do today what must be done. Who knows? Tomorrow, death comes.

Whatever is happening is the path to enlightenment.

Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water. The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken.

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

The quieter you become, the more you can hear.

Ethical conduct is not a constraint upon our freedom but a condition of our freedom.

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

It is under the greatest adversity that there exists the greatest potential for doing good, both for oneself and others.

If you want to understand suffering, you must look into the situation at hand. The teachings say that wherever a problem arises it must be settled right there.