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

The measure of success in spiritual life is how peaceful you are.

What you are is what you have been. What you'll be is what you do now.

Meditation is not about getting away from it all. It's about getting into it all.

Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is relax.

The door of your heart can only be opened from the inside.

The everyday practice is simply to develop complete acceptance and openness to all situations and emotions.

True happiness comes from a sense of inner peace and contentment, which in turn must be achieved through cultivation of altruism, of love, of compassion.

The truth of Zen is the truth of life, and life means to live, to move, to act, not merely to reflect.

The purpose of a spiritual discipline is to give us a way to stop the war, not by our force of will, but through understanding and through letting go.

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

Meditation practice isn't about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It's about befriending who we are already.

Devotion is the head of meditation, as is often said. When you are inspired by some spiritual teacher, you can have a very strong connection with that person, and thereby the blessings can enter.

To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.

Our task is not to seek for love but to find all the barriers within ourselves that we have built against it.

The essence of Buddhist practice is to bring everything onto the path. Every experience becomes an opportunity for awakening.

Your mind is like a garden. Your thoughts are the seeds. You can grow flowers or you can grow weeds.

When you note pain, you are not trying to make it go away. You are trying to understand its true nature.

Every small positive change we make in ourselves repays us in confidence in the future.

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.

Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us.

Every day, think as you wake up, today I am fortunate to be alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it.

Do everything with a mind that lets go. Don't accept praise or gain or anything else. If you let go a little, you will have a little peace; if you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace.

There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting.

Live in joy, in love, even among those who hate. Live in joy, in health, even among the afflicted. Live in joy, in peace, even among the troubled. Look within, be still.

The entire path is a path of self-responsibility. Nobody else can walk it for you.

Zen proposes its solution by directly appealing to facts of personal experience and not to book-knowledge.

The art of living... is neither careless drifting on the one hand nor fearful clinging to the past on the other. It consists in being sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive.

The heart of one who practices is like the earth. No matter what they throw on it, the earth remains unchanged.

Don't think that only sitting with the eyes closed is practice. If you do think this way, then quickly change your thinking.

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

The goal of meditation is not to achieve a blank mind, but to gain insight into the nature of mind itself.

The signs of practice are not in extraordinary experiences but in extraordinary awareness of ordinary experiences.

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

When mindfulness and concentration are strong, insight into the three characteristics naturally unfolds.

If it isn't good, let it die. If it doesn't die, make it good.

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

Compassion is the radicalism of our time.

The movement of love is what creates the beauty in our lives.

The mind is like a wild monkey, jumping here and there. But through meditation, we learn to see whatever arises in our mind with more spaciousness and clarity.

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

True peace comes not from controlling the world, but from letting go of control.

A disciplined mind leads to happiness, and an undisciplined mind leads to suffering.

Mindfulness is being aware of what's going on, not trying to control what's going on.

The root of all mind is your own present pure awareness. Rest in that essence without seeking elsewhere.

Forgiveness is letting go of the hope that the past could have been any different.

If you want to climb a mountain, begin at the top.

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.

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

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

Anxiety and excitement are the same emotion. The only difference is our attitude toward the experience.

Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it.

Even if you speak of 'understanding,' this understanding is not a matter of knowledge. It is what fills the entire body and mind.

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

Waking up this morning, I smile. Twenty-four brand new hours are before me. I vow to live fully in each moment.

The yogi's joy is in the solitude of mountains, where all distractions naturally dissolve into emptiness.

Insight knowledge comes from direct experience, not from intellectual understanding.

The essence of meditation is not something complicated or exotic. It is simply taking a break from our habitual patterns.

In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few.

The superior person is like water, bringing benefit to all without competing.