Buddhist practice is not to eliminate life's problems but to grow with them patiently and with compassion.

Meditation is not about trying to change ourselves. Meditation is about being aware of what is.

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

If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.

Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively.

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.

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

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

The practice of meditation is like learning to play an instrument - it takes patience, regular practice, and a gentle touch.

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 goal of Buddhist practice is not to escape from the world but to transform our relationship with it.

The most important thing is to enjoy your life - to be happy. This is the goal of Buddhist practice.

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.

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

The role of Zen is neither to stand above life nor to run away from it, but to face it with a spirit of determination.

Face your own anger and you will be free from anger. Face your own fears and you will be free from fear.

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

Let none find fault with others; let none see the omissions and commissions of others. But let one see one's own acts, done and undone.

The Buddha's teachings are not about abandoning our lives but about bringing the fullness of our attention to our lives.

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

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

Whatever is happening is the path to enlightenment.

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

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

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.

The more we witness our emotional reactions and understand how they work, the easier it is to refrain.

The Noble Eightfold Path is not a path of mere intellectual understanding but a path of practice, of inner transformation.

Every moment is a fresh beginning. Every breath is a new chance.

The more clearly you see the arising and passing of phenomena, the less you will be attached to them.

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

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

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.

The most profound meditation is to think nothing at all.

Hasten slowly and you will soon arrive.

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

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

Just know what is happening in your mind - not happy or sad about it, not attached. If you suffer, see it, know it, be empty.

Wisdom arises when you see the true characteristics of phenomena through direct experience.

Mindfulness is attention to life, and life itself is sacred.

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

Mindfulness helps you go home to the present. And every time you go there and recognize a condition of happiness that you have, happiness comes.

Compassion is the radicalism of our time.

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

The path to liberation is a gradual path of self-discipline, self-development, and self-transformation.

When both body and mind are at peace, all things appear as they are: perfect, complete, lacking nothing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The technique of self-observation is the technique of observing the reality about oneself at the experiential level.

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

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

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

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.

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