The practice is simply this: keep coming back to your breath during the day. This will give your mind a steadiness and your life a balance.

The treasure house within you contains everything, and you are free to use it. You don't need to seek outside.

Liberation is found in the practice, not in the theory.

Mindfulness helps you go home to the present. And every time you go there and recognize a condition of happiness that you have, happiness comes.

The more clearly you see the arising and passing of phenomena, the less you will be attached to them.

Concentration develops naturally through continuous noting. Don't try to force concentration to arise.

Start from where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.

If you want to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be miserable, expect something in return.

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

When you generate negativity, you are the first victim of your negativity.

Our defilements are like tame tigers. If you feed them, they're tame. If you stop feeding them, they'll eat you up.

The practice of mindfulness is the practice of being alive in the present moment.

Radiate boundless love towards the entire world — above, below, and across — unhindered, without ill will, without enmity.

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

Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.

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

The four foundations of mindfulness are not separate practices but different aspects of the same practice of clear awareness.

When you understand one thing through and through, you understand everything. When you try to understand everything, you will not understand anything.

You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.

Each moment of noting is a moment of purification, a moment of cultivating the path.

The idea of Zen is to catch life as it flows. There is nothing extraordinary or mysterious about Zen. I raise my hand; I take a book from the other side of the desk; I hear the boys playing ball outside my window; I see the clouds blown away beyond the neighboring wood: all these I do in Zen.

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

Short moments, many times. That is the essence of meditation practice.

The most important thing is to enjoy your life - to be happy. This is the goal of Buddhist practice.

Our own life has to be our message.

The greatest obstacle to meditation is our expectation about what it should be.

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

Every time we become aware of a thought, as opposed to being lost in a thought, we experience that opening of the mind.

We can learn the art of fierce compassion - redefining strength, deconstructing isolation and renewing a sense of community, practicing letting go of rigid us-vs.-them thinking.

Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.

Personal experience is everything in Zen. No ideas are intelligible to those who have no backing of experience.

The only way to experience truth is to look within, to observe oneself.

Every experience is an opportunity to practice awareness.

At the bottom of great doubt lies great awakening. If you doubt fully, you will awaken fully.

The cultivation of loving-kindness is the thread that runs through all Buddhist teachings.

Right practice is steady practice. Whether you feel lazy or diligent, just keep practicing.

Meditation is not an escape from life but a way to fully engage with life.

Meditation is the ultimate mobile device; you can use it anywhere, anytime, unobtrusively.

The more you meditate, the more you understand yourself and the better friend you become to yourself.

The whole path of mindfulness is about letting go. We let go of our attachment to our views, our attachment to our opinions, our attachment to our ideas.

The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

Time passes unhindered. When we make ourselves better, we make the world better.

In meditation, we are continuously discovering who and what we are.

Whoever told you that practice and enlightenment are separate?

Whatever we do, we should see ourselves. Reading books doesn't show us our defilements. Watch yourself. Watch your mind.

Liberation is not found by running away from our experience but by looking deeply into it.

Meditation is like a gym in which you develop the powerful mental muscles of calm and insight.

Genuine happiness comes from having developed basic human qualities, such as attention, emotional balance, and generosity.

The dharma is not in the books. If you want to find the dharma, look in your mind.

Treat every moment as your last. It is not preparation for something else.

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.

The great gift of meditation is that it returns us to the simplicity of our own being.

Study how water flows in a valley stream, smoothly and freely between the rocks.

Just as a mother would protect her only child with her life, even so let one cultivate a boundless love towards all beings.

The practice of metta begins with oneself, for only when we have developed loving-kindness towards ourselves can we truly offer it to others.

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

The practice of Zen is forgetting the self in the act of uniting with something.

The path is not about perfecting ourselves, but about perfecting our love.

You are the master of your own mind. You can be your best friend or your worst enemy.

We practice to learn how to let go, not how to increase our holding on to things.