Looking for peace is like looking for a turtle with a mustache: you won't be able to find it. But when your heart is ready, peace will come looking for you.

Craving and aversion are the roots of suffering. Observe them with equanimity.

In our struggle for freedom, truth is the only weapon we possess.

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

Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.

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

Enlightenment is intimacy with all things.

Trees, mountains, and vines all exist in nature according to their own truth. They are born and die following their nature. They remain this way because that's what they are. They don't practice meditation or do anything special.

The realization of impermanence leads not to despair but to a deeper appreciation of the preciousness of each moment.

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

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

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.

You are an aperture through which the universe is looking at and exploring itself.

Life is like an ever-shifting kaleidoscope - a slight change, and all patterns alter.

Enlightenment is not about becoming divine. Instead, it's about becoming more fully human.

Happiness is not the pursuit of an endless succession of experiences but an attitude toward life.

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

When you walk in the mist, you get wet.

The mind is the source of all happiness and the source of all suffering.

Neither from itself nor from another, nor from both, nor without a cause, does anything whatever, anywhere arise.

Wisdom is not about accumulating knowledge, but about seeing through all knowledge.

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

The mind that sees its own nature becomes free from all extremes.

The Buddha's teaching is not a philosophical system but a practical guide to living.

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.

For whom emptiness is possible, everything is possible. For whom emptiness is not possible, nothing is possible.

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

The secret of happiness is to want what you already have.

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

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

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

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

The world is its own magic.

Enlightenment is the realization that we were never really separate from one another or from all of life.

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

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

My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.

The path of practice moves from faith through understanding to direct realization.

In the beginning, nothing comes, in the middle nothing stays, in the end nothing goes.

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 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.

The more we understand impermanence, the more we appreciate each moment of our lives.

Real freedom is not about controlling our experience, but about being free within our experience.

The ultimate revolution is the spiritual revolution, where we learn to see reality as it truly is.

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 dharma is not about collecting more beliefs but about becoming free from the power of belief itself.

The ocean does not reject any water; therefore it is great. The mountain does not select its stones; therefore it is great.

The purpose of our lives is to be happy.

The past is for learning from, not for living in.

Both formerly and now, it is only suffering that I describe, and the cessation of suffering.

To think in terms of either pessimism or optimism oversimplifies the truth. The problem is to see reality as it is.

If you see certainty in that which is uncertain, you are bound to suffer.

The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.

Every being has the potential of becoming a Buddha. Our true nature is Buddha nature.

The mind is like water. When it's turbulent, it's difficult to see. When it's calm, everything becomes clear.

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

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

The Buddha's path is not about becoming somebody different but about becoming more and more who you really are.