To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don't need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.

Every morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most.

Peace requires us to surrender our illusions of control.

Altruism is not a luxury, it is a necessity for the survival of humanity.

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.

Maintain the state of undistractedness and distractions will fly away.

The mind that notes and the object that is noted are both impermanent. Understanding this leads to liberation.

The more you suffer the deeper grows your character, and with the deepening of your character you read the more penetratingly into the secrets of life.

The basic idea of Zen is to come in touch with the inner workings of our being, and to do this in the most direct way possible, without resorting to anything external or superadded.

We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.

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

By understanding emptiness, one understands all phenomena. Without understanding emptiness, one understands nothing.

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

Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.

The most important thing in life is to know death is coming and to prepare for it.

The way is basically perfect. It is not a matter of practice or enlightenment.

The Buddha's teaching is not about belief but about investigation, not about accepting but about examining.

In the spring, hundreds of flowers; in autumn, a harvest moon; in the summer, a refreshing breeze; in winter, snow will accompany you. If useless things do not hang in your mind, any season is a good season for you.

The affairs of the world will go on forever. Do not delay the practice of meditation.

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

Emptiness is not nothingness. Emptiness is the space of possibility.

Zen is a way of life, not a theory or a piece of knowledge to be stored away in our minds.

Those who cling to perceptions and views wander the world offending people.

The practice of mindfulness is simply to bring awareness to what we are doing, what we are saying, and what we are thinking.

The nature of everything is empty and clear, and the mind is beyond both existence and nonexistence.

Emptiness which is conceptually liable to be mistaken for sheer nothingness is in fact the reservoir of infinite possibilities.

As a flower that is lovely and beautiful, but is scentless, even so fruitless is the well-spoken word of one who does not practice it.

Where ignorance is our master, there is no possibility of real peace.

When you understand one thing through and through, you understand everything. When you try to understand everything, you will not understand anything.

When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help.

Wherever you are, you are one with the clouds and one with the sun and the stars you see. You are one with everything. That is more true than I can say, and more true than you can hear.

The path to liberation is a gradual path of self-discipline, self-development, and self-transformation.

Enlightenment is not the end of change but the end of resistance to change.