The essence of Buddhist practice is to bring everything onto the path. Every experience becomes an opportunity for awakening.

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.

Compassion is a verb.

The most profound meditation is to think nothing at all.

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

The spiritual journey is not about heaven and finally getting to a place that's really swell.

The cultivation of loving-kindness is the thread that runs through all Buddhist teachings.

The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth, dwelling deeply in the present moment and feeling truly alive.

Treat every moment as your last. It is not preparation for something else.

Suffering comes from our resistance to what is. Peace comes from our acceptance of what is.

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

Whatever is happening is the path to enlightenment.

Appearances are mind, mind itself is emptiness, emptiness itself is spontaneous presence.

The development of insight is gradual, but the realization of truth is sudden.

The three characteristics - impermanence, suffering, and non-self - are not philosophical concepts but aspects of experience to be directly observed.

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

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

Devotion is the head of meditation, as is often said. When you are inspired by some spiritual teacher, you can have a very strong connection with that person, and thereby the blessings can enter.

Every experience is an opportunity to practice awareness.

If you love someone, the greatest gift you can give them is your presence.

If you want to find peace, then look at that point where you find you're dissatisfied and investigate what's really going on.

The Noble Eightfold Path is not a path of mere intellectual understanding but a path of practice, of inner transformation.

The person who clings to nothing of the past, present and future, who has no attachment and no aversion, has no conceptual imprints.

Better to have one moment of genuine meditation than to perform religious activities for a thousand years.

The Buddha taught us to leave alone the things that don't lead to awakening.

When concentration is developed, wisdom arises. When wisdom arises, one becomes disenchanted with the five aggregates.

All beings by nature are Buddha, as ice by nature is water. Apart from water there is no ice; apart from beings, no Buddha.

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

The essence of Buddhist practice is to reduce our selfishness and to work for the benefit of others.

Silence is so much more productive of wisdom and clarity than thinking.

Peace is within oneself to be found in the same place as agitation and suffering. It is not found in a forest or on a hilltop, nor is it given by a teacher.

Whoever told you that practice and enlightenment are separate?

Faith is not a commodity that you either have or don't have - it is an inner quality that unfolds as we learn to trust our own deepest experience.