This very body is the Buddha. And this very earth the lotus paradise.

Each moment of clear seeing is a moment of freedom from the illusion of permanence, satisfaction, and self.

Your own treasure house contains everything you need; why search outside?

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

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.

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

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

Enlightenment is not a state of perfection but of authenticity.

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

Real happiness lies within. It cannot be found in external objects or achievements.

All worldly pursuits have but one unavoidable and inevitable end, which is sorrow; acquisitions end in dispersion; buildings in destruction; meetings in separation; births in death.

The farther you enter into truth, the deeper it is.

Happiness is not about getting what you want, but wanting what you've got.

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

Loving-kindness is not something we need to manufacture. It's a natural expression of our awakened nature.

Although all phenomena are empty of inherent existence, they function perfectly well.

The purpose of our lives is to be happy.

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

Ethical conduct is not a constraint upon our freedom but a condition of our freedom.

Everybody has the light of Buddha within, but they don't look for it.

In the moment of pure noting, there is no self - only the knowing and the known.

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

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

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

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

Karma is not fate but the law of moral causation, showing us that we are the architects of our own destiny.

Just as the great ocean has one taste, the taste of salt, so also this teaching and discipline has one taste, the taste of liberation.

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

The root of all suffering is ignorance. The antidote to ignorance is wisdom that realizes emptiness.

The secret of happiness lies not in getting what we want, but in learning to want what we already have.

The purpose of our lives is to be happy, and happiness is found in benefiting others.

Things derive their being and nature by mutual dependence and are nothing in themselves.

When you walk in the mist, you get wet.

Buddhas and ordinary beings are not two. Enlightenment and delusion are not different paths.

What we learn about the world is colored by the way we approach it.

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

Dependent origination is not a theory about the origin of the world but a teaching that shows how suffering originates in dependence on our own mental processes.

For things to reveal themselves to us, we need to be ready to abandon our views about them.

True freedom is not the absence of commitment but the presence of choice.

When you are you, Zen is Zen. Big mind is just big mind.

The instant you speak about a thing, you miss the mark.

The heart of the path is quite simple. No need for long explanations. Give up clinging to love and hate, just rest with things as they are.

There is no path to happiness: happiness is the path.

The purpose of life is to be happy, to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate. It is not to be well known, cited, or powerful.

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

To see the truth, do not be for or against. The struggle between for and against is the mind's worst disease.

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?

Don't take life too seriously. No one gets out alive anyway.

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

All that appears and exists, all of samsara and nirvana, has one ground, two paths, and two results. This is the magical display of awareness and unawareness.

Instead of having a deep understanding of the teaching, we need a strong confidence in our teaching, which says that originally we have Buddha nature.

To live is enough.

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

The path to enlightenment is not a path at all. It is a realization that where you are is where you have always been.

The mind is the forerunner of all things. Our present life is the result of our past thoughts, and our future life will be the result of our present thoughts.

If you want to know your past life, look into your present condition; if you want to know your future life, look into your present actions.

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

Don't try to push away the darkness. Just light a lamp. The darkness will disappear by itself.

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.

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