Worry pretends to be necessary but serves no useful purpose.

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

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

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

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

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

The mind is intrinsically empty. It's empty of all that we perceive as being intrinsically "me" and "mine."

The mind that sees its own nature becomes free from all extremes.

The true person is not anyone in particular. But like the deep blue color of the limitless sky, it is everyone, everywhere in the world.

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

Through continuous mindfulness practice, the true nature of physical and mental phenomena becomes clear.

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.

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

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

Recognize the emptiness of all phenomena, but do not become attached to emptiness itself.

The ultimate revolution is the spiritual revolution, where we learn to see reality as it truly is.

Enlightenment is not about becoming something special, but about realizing what we already are.

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

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

The Four Noble Truths are not mere doctrinal propositions but a framework for understanding and transforming our lives.

You are an aperture through which the universe is looking at and exploring itself.

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

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

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.

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

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

Real peace comes from seeing things as they really are, not as we want them to be.

In our struggle for freedom, truth is the only weapon we possess.

The past is just a memory. The future is just a dream. Be here now.

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

Life is like an ever-shifting kaleidoscope - a slight change, and all patterns alter.

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

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

The essence of the spiritual journey is the uncovering of what is always already present.

Real happiness comes from having an unshakable connection to the deep wellspring of peace and happiness that is not dependent on external conditions.

The deepest form of happiness comes from discovering the natural peace of our own awareness.

To think in terms of either pessimism or optimism oversimplifies the truth. The problem is to see reality as it is.

Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.

The sign of wisdom is constant joy.

The spiritual journey begins with the recognition that beneath our surface happiness there lies a deep inner pain.

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

Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

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

Enlightenment is intimacy with all things.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

When you walk in the mist, you get wet.

Suffering comes from our resistance to what is. Peace comes from our acceptance of what is.

The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.

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

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