The way to change the world is to change your own mind.

The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the expert, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all the possibilities.

Try to be mindful and let things take their natural course. Then your mind will become still in any surroundings, like a clear forest pool.

To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don't grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.

The first step toward faith is to admit that we don't know everything.

Vipassana is the art of living. Not the art of escaping.

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

Faith is not a commodity that you either have or don't have - it is an inner quality that unfolds as we learn to trust our own deepest experience.

Choose to be optimistic, it feels better.

Do not follow the ideas of others, but learn to listen to the voice within yourself.

Through understanding emptiness, one does not become proud of one's virtues, just as one does not become proud of building a castle in the sky.

Just as a snake sheds its skin, we must shed our past over and over again.

Life and death are of supreme importance. Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost. Each of us should strive to awaken. Awaken! Take heed, do not squander your life.

When you note pain, you should not dwell on the thought, "I feel pain." Simply recognize the presence of pain.

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

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

Hasten slowly and you will soon arrive.

The Buddha's teaching is not about belief but about investigation, not about accepting but about examining.

The challenge in meditation is not to eliminate thinking but to understand the nature of thought itself.

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.

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

The snow lion stays in the mountains, and the snow lion's ways are the snow lion's ways.

The supreme path is not to fabricate anything. The supreme meditation is not to be distracted.

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

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

The Buddha's teaching is a teaching of self-reliance, of being one's own master, one's own refuge.

The truth of suffering is not to be feared but to be understood through direct observation.

Meditation is not about trying to change your experience; it's about changing your relationship to your experience.

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

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

As a flower that is lovely and beautiful, but is scentless, even so fruitless is the well-spoken word of one who does not practice it.

Not by hatred is hatred conquered, but by love alone. This is an eternal law.

There is no need to have a deep understanding of Zen. Even though you read much Zen literature, you must read each sentence with a fresh mind.

The most important point is to accept yourself and stand on your two feet.

Maintain the state of undistractedness and distractions will fly away.

The law of nature is the law of cause and effect. As you sow, so shall you reap.

Compassion is not something we develop. It arises naturally as we see the truth of what is.

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

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

The source of love is deep in us and we can help others realize a lot of happiness. One word, one action, one thought can reduce another person's suffering and bring that person joy.

Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.

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

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

Though the view should be as vast as the sky, keep your conduct as fine as barley flour.

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

Don't expect or desire anything. Just keep noting whatever arises in the present moment.

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

The cultivation of loving-kindness has the power to transform enmity into amity, hostility into hospitality.

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

In meditation, we're not trying to get rid of thoughts but to recognize their true nature.

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

Rather than letting our negativity get the better of us, we could acknowledge that right now we feel like a piece of shit and not be squeamish about taking a good look.

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

Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.

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

Each of you is perfect the way you are... and you can use a little improvement.

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

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

Mind training is based on the idea that two opposite mental factors cannot happen at the same time.

The key to transformation is not to fight with our experience but to open to it with awareness.