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

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

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

The essence of mind is empty like space; yet it contains all things, like a mirror.

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

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.

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

The one who grasps at existence suffers in samsara, while the one who grasps at non-existence will find no liberation.

Just to be alive is enough.

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.

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

The Buddha and all sentient beings are nothing but expressions of the one mind. There is nothing else.

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.

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

When you realize how perfect everything is, you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky.

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

To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things.

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

When we understand others, we understand ourselves. When we love others, we love ourselves.

The ultimate source of happiness is not money and power, but warm-heartedness.

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

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.

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

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

Since all things are empty of inherent existence, anything is possible. If things had inherent existence, nothing would be possible.

The essence of the teaching is emptiness and compassion. Without emptiness, compassion can become attachment. Without compassion, emptiness can become cold and distant.

Wisdom arises when you see the true characteristics of phenomena through direct experience.

When you recognize that pain and suffering are impermanent, you become free.

The only things that are truly mine are my actions and their results.

Zen is not necessarily against words, but it is well aware of their limitations.

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

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

When we know the truth, we become people who don't have to think much, we become people with wisdom.

The quality of every moment depends on the state of our minds.

The highest truth cannot be taught except through the conventional truth.

Enlightenment is intimacy with all things.

Awareness is the basis, or what you might call the "support," of the mind. It is steady and unchanging, like the pole to which the flag of ordinary consciousness is attached.

The more we understand impermanence, the more we understand that we can't hold on to anything.

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

The experience of emptiness engenders compassion.

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

In Zen there must be satori; there must be a general mental upheaval which destroys the old accumulations of intellection and lays down the foundation for a new life.

To see nothing is to perceive the Way, and to understand nothing is to know the Dharma.

Suffering is not the end of the story; it is the middle of the story.

Wisdom says we are nothing. Love says we are everything. Between these two our life flows.

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

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

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

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

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.

To live – is that not enough? To love – is that not everything?

The dharma wheel turns from the beginning. There is neither excess nor deficiency. The whole universe is moistened with nectar, and the truth is ready to harvest.

The essence of Buddhism is not a belief system but a systematic investigation of our experience.

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

The time of the past becomes the present, the time of the present becomes the future, the time of the future becomes the present, and the time of the present becomes the past.

When you understand that all phenomena are impermanent, unsatisfactory, and non-self, attachment naturally falls away.

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

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

The goal of the Buddhist path is not to add something to our existence but to discover something that has been there all along.

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