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

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

Just observe whatever arises. Don't try to create anything, and don't reject anything.

Misery ceases to exist when we stop reacting to sensations.

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

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

Knowledge must be stabilized by meditation. Without meditation, knowledge is like a child in battle.

The obstacle is the path.

Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves - slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future.

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

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.

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

The deepest happiness comes from having an enduring sense of purpose, one that gives our lives meaning beyond the endless pursuit of pleasure and success.

As long as our orientation is toward perfection or success, we will never learn about unconditional friendship with ourselves, nor will we find compassion.

There is no way to happiness - happiness is the way.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.

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

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

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

We don't set out to save the world; we set out to wonder how other people are doing and to reflect on how our actions affect other people's hearts.

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

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

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.

When we rest in awareness, we discover a peace that is always present, regardless of circumstances.

The perfect moment is this one, not the one you're waiting for.

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

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

The way to overcome anger is to be too busy being kind to have time to be angry.

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 more we care for the happiness of others, the greater our own sense of well-being becomes.

Look at situations from all angles, and you will become more open.

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

Mindfulness is the quality and power of mind that is aware of what's happening—without judgment and without interference.

When we are mindful, deeply in touch with the present moment, our understanding of what is going on deepens, and we begin to be filled with acceptance, joy, peace and love.

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

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

The only way to fail at meditation is to stop doing it.

The zazen I speak of is not meditation practice. It is simply the dharma gate of joyful ease.

The way is not in the sky. The way is in the heart.

Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.

Don't be afraid of the future. The future is good.

True happiness is not found through the multiplication of desires but through their simplification.

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.

Wisdom is not something we have to strive to acquire. Rather, wisdom arises naturally as we open our hearts to the truth of what is.

The goal is not to be better than the other man, but your previous self.

The most important things in our practice are our physical posture and our way of breathing.

The restraint of the senses is not a matter of suppression but of wise attention to our experience.

Every morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most.

The most profound meditation is to think nothing at all.

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

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

The Buddha taught us to leave alone the things that don't lead to awakening.

Don't be a bodhisatta; don't be an arahant; don't be anything at all. Being something makes you suffer.