The water in the ocean can be rough or calm. It can be clear or murky. But the water itself doesn't mind.

The more you understand impermanence, the more you appreciate every moment.

The practice of Buddhism is fundamentally a practice of expanding our happiness and diminishing our suffering.

The more we understand our mind, the more we understand the world.

True peace is found not in the absence of experience but in the clear seeing of all experience.

The Dhamma unfolds in accordance with a definite sequence: faith, virtue, learning, generosity, wisdom, and insight.

If you want to know your past life, look at your present condition. If you want to know your future life, look at your present actions.

Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.

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

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

The deepest happiness comes from having an enduring sense of purpose, one that gives our lives meaning beyond the endless pursuit of pleasure and success.

The willingness to empty ourselves and then seek our true nature is an expression of great and courageous love.

Sankharas are the seeds of consciousness that manifest as sensations. By observing sensations equanimously, we stop creating new sankharas.

Change is possible because there is nothing inherently permanent about our disturbing emotions.

The practice of vipassana is the study of the self. When you study physical and mental phenomena, you are studying the truth about yourself.

The Buddha's teaching is a middle way between all extremes, between eternalism and annihilationism, between self-indulgence and self-torture.

The past is just a memory. The future is just a dream. Be here now.

My father is the intrinsic awareness, Samantabhadra. My mother is the ultimate sphere of reality, Samantabhadri. I belong to the caste of non-duality of these two.

To live fully is to let go and die with each step.

The mind is intrinsically empty. It's empty of all that we perceive as being intrinsically "me" and "mine."

The eye with which I see Buddha is the same eye with which Buddha sees me.

Without darkness, there is no light. Without the path, there is no arrival.

The path of awakening is not about becoming who you are. Rather it is about unbecoming who you are not.

Happiness is found in the simplest of things. It is not in the things you own, but in the love you share.

The teaching of the Buddha is based on two truths: conventional truth and ultimate truth. Without understanding the relationship between these two, the deeper meaning of the Buddha's teaching cannot be understood.

The five aggregates are not a theoretical model but a description of lived experience to be investigated through mindfulness.

Who would then deny that when I am sipping tea in my tearoom I am swallowing the whole universe with it and that this very moment of my lifting the bowl to my lips is eternity itself transcending time and space?

The root of suffering is not in the world outside us but in our own minds.

You are the sky. Everything else is just the weather.

Right View is not just a matter of intellectual understanding but of seeing things as they really are.

People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth.

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

Life is an art, and like perfect art it should be self-forgetting.

Do not think you will necessarily be aware of your own enlightenment.

The basic teaching of Buddhism is the teaching of transiency, or change.

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

People who study a lot but don't practice are like a ladle in a soup pot. It's in the soup every day, but it doesn't know the taste of the soup.

The greatest wisdom is seeing through appearances.

The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.

Without accepting the fact that everything changes, we cannot find perfect composure.

Everything that has a beginning has an ending. Make your peace with that and all will be well.

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

The Buddha's teaching is a teaching of self-reliance, of being one's own master, one's own refuge.

The menu is not the meal.

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.

In the spiritual world there are no time divisions such as the past, present and future; for they have contracted themselves into a single moment of the present where life quivers in its true sense.

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

Awareness is like the sun. When it shines on things, they are transformed.

Our true nature is like a diamond - pure, brilliant, and indestructible. No matter how much dirt covers it, its essential nature remains unchanged.

Nothing we see or hear is perfect. But right there in the imperfection is perfect reality.

The essence of all phenomena is empty and clear like space. The nature of mind is awareness-emptiness like the sun and sky.

When one sees with wisdom that all phenomena are empty of inherent existence, one is liberated from suffering.

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

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

My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand.

Don't be a bodhisatta; don't be an arahant; don't be anything at all. Being something makes you suffer.

Life is available only in the present moment.

True happiness is born of letting go of what is unnecessary.

Awareness is always with us. We don't need to create it or achieve it - we just need to recognize what's already there.

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