The highest mantra is to be without deception. The highest medicine is to have few desires. The highest meditation is not to be attached.

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

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

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

Compassion is not a sign of weakness but a sign of strength.

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

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

The best way to control people is to encourage them to be mischievous. Then they will be in control in a wider sense.

The seed of suffering in you may be strong, but don't wait until you have no more suffering before allowing yourself to be happy.

True love is not for the faint-hearted.

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

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.

The master's introduction is direct recognition of one's own nature. Meditation is maintaining the continuity of this recognition.

The practice of mindfulness begins in the small, remote cave of your unconscious mind and blossoms with the sunlight of your conscious life.

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

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.

The more you are motivated by love, the more fearless and free your actions will be.

Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past.

Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.

Equanimity is not indifference. It is the balanced state of mind.

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

The three characteristics - impermanence, suffering, and non-self - are not philosophical concepts but aspects of experience to be directly observed.

The Buddha taught that wealth does not bring happiness and security. The pursuit of wealth is a matter of living in balance.

The precious pot containing my riches becomes my teacher in the very moment it breaks.

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

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

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. If you let go completely, you will have complete peace.

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

Equanimity is not indifference. It is the balanced mind that sees things clearly without reaction.

The real purpose of Zen is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes.

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

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

The root of happiness is altruism — the wish to be of service to others.

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

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

In a mind clear as still water, even the waves, breaking, are reflecting its light.

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

Zen teaches nothing; it merely enables us to wake up and become aware. It does not teach, it points.

Compassion is the radicalism of our time.

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.

External seeking only leads to exhaustion. When you imitate others, you lose your own authenticity.

Meditation is not about stopping thoughts, but recognizing that we are not our thoughts.

Do not mistake understanding for realization, and do not mistake realization for liberation.

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

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

When you listen to someone, you should give up all your preconceived ideas and your subjective opinions.

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

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

When walking, just walk. When sitting, just sit. Above all, don't wobble.

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

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

The only thing that we truly have control over is our attitude toward experience.

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.

Like a fine flower, beautiful to look at but without scent, fine words are fruitless in a man who does not act in accordance with them.

Meditation is the road to happiness.

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

The purpose of Buddhist practice is not to become a Buddhist but to awaken to the nature of reality.

The path of insight is a path of discovery, not a path of creation. We are discovering what is already there.

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