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

The first noble truth of the Buddha is that life contains suffering. The second noble truth is that the cause of suffering is craving.

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

Few among men are they who cross to the further shore. The others merely run up and down the bank on this side.

When we understand that peace is not dependent on external conditions, we can find it in the midst of any circumstance.

My religion is to live and die without regret.

The first step toward faith is to admit that we don't know everything.

When we meet real tragedy in life, we can react in two ways - either by losing hope and falling into self-destructive habits, or by using the challenge to find our inner strength.

Every moment is a fresh beginning. Every breath is a new chance.

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

True love is not for the faint-hearted.

Mindfulness is not just bare attention but wise attention that leads to understanding and insight.

Work diligently. Diligently. Work patiently and persistently. Patiently and persistently. And you're bound to be successful. Bound to be successful.

The best way to control people is to encourage them to be mischievous. Then they will be in control in a wider sense.

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

Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely.

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

The roots of all goodness lie in the soil of appreciation for goodness.

Silence is sometimes the best answer.

Meditation is not an escape from reality but a way to understand reality as it truly is.

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

Like a fine flower, beautiful to look at but without scent, fine words are fruitless in a man who does not act in accordance with them.

The practice of ethics is not about following rules but about developing inner purity and freedom.

Buddhist practice is not to eliminate life's problems but to grow with them patiently and with compassion.

Each of you is perfect the way you are... and you can use a little improvement.

Just as the wise do not take a mirage to be water, nor an echo to be a voice, so the enlightened do not take the world to be real.

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

Our basic nature is pure awareness that simply cognizes experience. Everything else is temporary and adventitious.

The stages of insight unfold naturally when mindfulness is continuous. There is no need to desire them or try to make them happen.

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

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.

Nothing can harm you as much as your own unguarded thoughts.

To see directly is to be free of hope and fear. Hope and fear are like a cloud before the sun.