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

The nature of mind is the unity of awareness and emptiness.

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

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

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

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

Peace is not found by changing the world, but by changing your attitude to the world.

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

The greatest wisdom is seeing through appearances.

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

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

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

Like a dream, like an illusion, like a city of gandharvas, that's how birth, and that's how living, that's how dying are taught to be.

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

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

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

Because you are alive, everything is possible.

Understanding means throwing away your knowledge.

The mind is the root from which all things grow. If you can understand the mind, everything else is included.

Past thoughts are traceless, clear, and empty. Future thoughts are unborn and fresh. The present moment abides naturally and unconstructed.

The way we look at the world is the way the world looks.

The future is completely open, and we are writing it moment to moment.

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

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

The truth of suffering is not to be feared but to be understood through direct observation.

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

The more you understand, the more you love; the more you love, the more you understand.

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

The path is not about moving from one place to another. It's about recognizing where we already are.

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

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

The path to liberation requires both individual effort and the support of the spiritual community.

What we call "I" is just a swinging door which moves when we inhale and when we exhale.

Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water. The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken.

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

Our basic nature is pure awareness that simply cognizes experience. Everything else is temporary and adventitious.

The Buddha never taught a sectarian religion; he taught Dhamma - the way to liberation - which is universal.

The law of nature is the law of cause and effect. As you sow, so shall you reap.

Just to be alive is enough.

Just as the wise do not take a mirage to be water, nor an echo to be a voice, so the enlightened do not take the world to be real.

The person who clings to nothing of the past, present and future, who has no attachment and no aversion, has no conceptual imprints.

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.

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

The lamp of wisdom burns constantly, illuminating the nature of mind.

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

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

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

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

The nature of everything is illusory and ephemeral, those with dualistic perception regard suffering as happiness, like they who lick the honey from a razor's edge.

Only one book is worth reading: the heart.

The key to the Buddha's teaching is not grasping, not trying to hold onto things that are essentially impermanent and unstable.

When mindfulness becomes continuous, the distinction between the observer and the observed begins to break down.

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

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

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

We should find perfect existence through imperfect existence.

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

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.

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

The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.