To study the Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things.

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

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

The nature of mind is not something we need to achieve - it's something we need to recognize.

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

The nature of mind is like a mirror. It is not affected by whatever appears in it, yet it never fails to reflect everything perfectly.

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

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

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

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

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

Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.

When the iron bird flies and horses run on wheels, the Tibetan people will be scattered like ants across the face of the earth.

Life is like a cup of tea. It's all in how you make it.

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

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

Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence.

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

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.

Wherever you are, you are one with the clouds and one with the sun and the stars you see. You are one with everything. That is more true than I can say, and more true than you can hear.

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

The nature of life is change. The nature of change is painful. The nature of pain is temporary.

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

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

The purpose of meditation is to gain right understanding of the true nature of mental and physical phenomena.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Appearances are mind, mind itself is emptiness, emptiness itself is spontaneous presence.

True happiness is not about getting rid of all our problems, but about changing our relationship to them.

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

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

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

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

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

The Dhamma is not a collection of doctrinal formulas but a path leading to direct insight into the nature of reality.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

The path of insight is a path of discovery, not a path of creation. We are discovering what is already there.

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.

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

Intrinsically all living beings are Buddhas, just as ice and water are of the same substance.

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

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

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

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

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.

Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them.

Worry pretends to be necessary but serves no useful purpose.

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 ultimate purpose of Buddhism is to serve and benefit humanity.

To carry yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion. That myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening.

The Four Noble Truths are not merely theoretical propositions but a framework for understanding and transforming our experience.

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