The mind of the past is ungraspable; the mind of the future is ungraspable; the mind of the present is ungraspable.

Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.

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

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

The ultimate purpose of Buddhism is to serve and benefit humanity.

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

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.

Life is like stepping onto a boat which is about to sail out to sea and sink.

The color of the mountains is Buddha's body; the sound of running water is his great speech.

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

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

Change is the nature of every phenomenon. Accept this truth and you will live a happy life.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

The awareness that you are here, right now, is the ultimate fact.

If you want to know the past, look at the present. If you want to know the future, look at the present.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.

External phenomena are like a dream, whatever appears is not real. Recognize the nature of dream-like phenomena to be dream-like.

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

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

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

The practice of ethics is not about following rules but about developing inner purity and freedom.

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.

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.

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

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

The purpose of our lives is to be happy.

When concentration is developed, wisdom arises. When wisdom arises, one becomes disenchanted with the five aggregates.

The willingness to empty ourselves and then seek our true nature is an expression of great and courageous love.

Right View is not just a matter of intellectual understanding but of seeing things as they really are.

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

The first noble truth of the Buddha is that life contains suffering. The second noble truth is that the cause of suffering is craving.

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

When you walk in the mist, you get wet.

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

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

The more we understand the nature of our mind, the more we understand the nature of our world.

The most important factor in achieving happiness is the mind. Happiness and suffering are mental states and therefore depend on the mind.

The six realms of existence are like a dream, why build a prison for yourself?

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.

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

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 path of practice requires both faith and wisdom, both devotion and understanding.

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

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