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

Our true nature is like a diamond - pure, brilliant, and indestructible. No matter how much dirt covers it, its essential nature remains unchanged.

Happiness is not the pursuit of an endless succession of experiences but an attitude toward life.

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

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

The way is basically perfect. It is not a matter of practice or enlightenment.

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

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

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

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

As long as you seek for something, you will get the shadow of reality and not reality itself.

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

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 purpose of Buddhist practice is not to become a Buddhist but to awaken to the nature of reality.

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

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

Karma is not fate but the law of moral causation, showing us that we are the architects of our own destiny.

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

Those who grasp at things as truly existent are like someone trying to catch the reflection of the moon in water.

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

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

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

If I had any position, I would thereby have a flaw. But since I have no position, I alone am without flaw.

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

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.

The goal of Buddhist practice is not to escape from the world but to transform our relationship with it.

When one sees with wisdom that all phenomena are empty of inherent existence, one is liberated from suffering.

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

Whatever precious jewel there is in the heavenly worlds, there is nothing comparable to one who is awakened.

Enlightenment is not a state of perfection but of authenticity.

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

To live is enough.

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

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

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

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

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

The path of awakening is not about becoming who you are. Rather it is about unbecoming who you are not.

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

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

The defilements of the mind are temporary visitors. Pure awareness is your true home.

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.

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

The nature of the mind is like the sky, and our thoughts, emotions, and experiences are like clouds passing through it.

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

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

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

The path to liberation requires both understanding and practice, both pariyatti and patipatti.

The fundamental delusion of humanity is to suppose that I am here and you are out there.

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

Awareness is like the sun. When it shines on things, they are transformed.

Each moment of clear seeing is a moment of freedom from the illusion of permanence, satisfaction, and self.

Expectations are the thieves of joy.

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

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

Zen in its essence is the art of seeing into the nature of one's own being, and it points the way from bondage to freedom.

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.

There is no difference at all between samsara and nirvana. There is no difference at all between nirvana and samsara.