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

Whatever is happening is the path to enlightenment.

Zazen is not step-by-step meditation. Rather it is simply the easy and pleasant practice of a Buddha, the realization of the Buddha's Wisdom.

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

Meditation is like catching a fish. If you try to catch it quickly, you'll miss it. If you have patience and know how to wait, the fish will come.

Technical knowledge is not enough. One must transcend techniques so that the art becomes an artless art, growing out of the unconscious.

Should a person do good, let him do it again and again. Let him find pleasure therein, for blissful is the accumulation of good.

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

Concentration and insight are like two wings of a bird: both are necessary for the flight to liberation.

The practice of mindfulness is simply to bring awareness to what we are doing, what we are saying, and what we are thinking.

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

The best way to solve a problem is to help someone else solve their problem.

The archer ceases to be conscious of himself as the one who is engaged in hitting the bull's-eye which confronts him. This state of unconsciousness is realized only when, completely empty and rid of the self, he becomes one with the perfecting of his technical skill.

If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. This is the most basic kind of peace work.

The Buddha's teaching is not a philosophy or a religion; it is a method of practice.

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

The practice is not about achieving special states but about seeing ordinary experience with extraordinary clarity.

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

The essence of Buddhism is not a belief system but a systematic investigation of our experience.

Much of spiritual life is self-acceptance, maybe all of it.

The Noble Eightfold Path is a path of training: training in ethical conduct, training in mental discipline, and training in wisdom.

The Buddha's teaching is not a philosophical system but a practical guide to living.

The development of wisdom requires both study and practice, both learning and direct experience.

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

Words have the power to both destroy and heal. When words are both true and kind, they can change our world.

Mindfulness is the key to transformation. It enables us to see our experience as it really is, free from distortion and bias.

When you talk, you are only repeating what you already know. But if you listen, you may learn something new.

Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past.

The dharma is not about collecting more beliefs but about becoming free from the power of belief itself.

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

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

The rising and falling of the abdomen is not the main object. The main object is to develop mindfulness, concentration, and insight.

The true understanding is that the practice itself is enlightenment.

Meditation is the road to happiness.

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

Our own life has to be our message.

Misery ceases to exist when we stop reacting to sensations.

When we look directly at our thoughts, they dissolve like bubbles in water.

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

The path is the goal. Every step of the journey is the journey.

When things fall apart and we're on the verge of we know not what, the test of each of us is to stay on that brink and not concretize.

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

Our practice cannot be perfect, but without being discouraged by this, we should continue it. This is the secret of practice.

The development of wisdom does not occur in isolation but requires the cultivation of the entire Noble Eightfold Path.

Our emotions are like waves in the ocean. We can't stop the waves, but we can learn to surf.

The purpose of meditation is not to create a mental vacuum but to come to know one's own mind.

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

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

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.

Share your knowledge. It is a way to achieve immortality.

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

Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is relax.

The quieter you become, the more you can hear.

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

When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point.

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

Drop by drop is the water pot filled. Likewise, the wise man, gathering it little by little, fills himself with good.

The practice of mindfulness is simple: whatever you experience, you observe and note it.