The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves, is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently.

Nothing can harm you as much as your own unguarded thoughts.

The mind is everything. What you think, you become.

The nature of mind is clearer than the sky, yet we keep looking elsewhere.

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.

The mind itself is the maker of all happiness and misery; yet beings do not understand this and blame external conditions.

Just as true humor is laughter at oneself, true humanity is knowledge of oneself.

When you look deeply into your anger, you will see that the person you call your enemy is also suffering. As soon as you see that, the capacity for accepting and having compassion for them is there.

Forgiveness is giving up all hope for a better past.

Many people think excitement is happiness... But when you are excited you are not peaceful. True happiness is based on peace.

All experiences are preceded by mind, having mind as their master, created by mind.

Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.

To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don't need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.

People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.

When I run from suffering, it follows me. When I face suffering with equanimity, it runs from me.

If a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you can do something about it, then there is no need to worry. If it's not fixable, then there is no help in worrying. There is no benefit in worrying whatsoever.

Forgiveness is not a moral issue. It's a power issue. When we hold onto grievance and resentment, we are giving our power away.

In the moment of anger, abandon anger but not the person. In the moment of attachment, abandon attachment but not the person.

Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness.

All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.

We think that the point is to pass the test or overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It's just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.

When thoughts arise, recognize them as the display of your own awareness, like recognizing your own children in a crowd.

Anger or hatred is like a fisherman's hook. It is very important for us to ensure that we are not caught by it.

The more you suffer the deeper grows your character, and with the deepening of your character you read the more penetratingly into the secrets of life.

The nature of mind is like a mirror. It is not affected by whatever appears in it, yet it never fails to reflect everything perfectly.

Life is glorious, but life is also wretched. It is both. Appreciating the gloriousness inspires us, encourages us, cheers us up, gives us a bigger perspective, energizes us. We feel connected. But if that's all that's happening, we get arrogant and start to look down on others, and there is a sense of making ourselves a big deal and being really serious about it, wanting it to be like that forever. The gloriousness becomes tinged by craving and addiction. On the other hand, wretchedness--life's painful aspect--softens us up considerably. Knowing pain is a very important ingredient of being there for another person.

Mindfulness helps us get better at seeing the difference between what's happening and the stories we tell ourselves about what's happening.

Every intelligent individual wants to know what makes him tick, and yet is at once fascinated and frustrated by the fact that oneself is the most difficult of all things to know.

When you love someone, you have to have trust and confidence. Love without trust is not yet love.

The mind creates the abyss, and the heart crosses it.

The mind is the source of all happiness and the source of all suffering.

All experiences are preceded by mind, led by mind, made by mind. Speak or act with a corrupted mind, and suffering follows as the wagon wheel follows the hoof of the ox.

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.

We need to learn to let our emotions pass through us like waves, without getting caught in their undertow.

Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.

The true hero is one who conquers his own anger and hatred.

Freedom is not found in the absence of difficulty, but in our relationship to it.

A disciplined mind leads to happiness, and an undisciplined mind leads to suffering.

The ultimate source of a happy life is warm-heartedness. This means extending to others the kind of concern we have for ourselves.

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.

When you run after your thoughts, you are like a dog chasing a stick. Every time a stick is thrown, you run after it. Instead, be like a lion who, rather than chasing after the stick, turns to face the thrower.

The more you understand yourself, the more you understand the world.

When we see the nature of the mind, we see that we are not our thoughts.

When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help.

The difference between misery and happiness depends on what we do with our attention.

As rain breaks through an ill-thatched house, passion will break through an unreflecting mind.

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

Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I would like to see you living in better conditions.

The greatest obstacle to connecting with our joy is resentment.

When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don't blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce.

Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.

Fear keeps us focused on the past or worried about the future. If we can acknowledge our fear, we can realize that right now we are okay.

When we attempt to exercise power or control over someone else, we cannot avoid giving that person the very same power or control over us.

Suffering is not the end of the story; it is the middle of the story.

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

The most difficult times for many of us are the ones we give ourselves.

The mind is everything. What you think you become.

To see directly is to be free of hope and fear. Hope and fear are like a cloud before the sun.

To be attached to a thing means that mind and the thing meet and grow into each other.

Hope and fear come from feeling that we lack something; they come from a sense of poverty. We can't simply relax with ourselves. We hold on to hope, and hope robs us of the present moment.