The quieter you become, the more you can hear.

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

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

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

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

Panic, anxiety, and stress are not obstacles to the practice. They are the path to wisdom and compassion.

If you want to know your past life, look at your present condition. If you want to know your future life, look at your present actions.

Peace is not found by changing the world, but by changing your attitude to the world.

All worldly pursuits have but one unavoidable and inevitable end, which is sorrow; acquisitions end in dispersion; buildings in destruction; meetings in separation; births in death.

When mindfulness becomes continuous, the distinction between the observer and the observed begins to break down.

The menu is not the meal.

The dharma is not outside of you. Looking for it elsewhere is like placing a Buddha on your head while searching for him everywhere else.

The mind that notes and the object that is noted are both impermanent. Understanding this leads to liberation.

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

To see the truth, do not be for or against. The struggle between for and against is the mind's worst disease.

You are the sky. Everything else is just the weather.

The essence of meditation is not something complicated or exotic. It is simply taking a break from our habitual patterns.

Peace requires us to surrender our illusions of control.

When you understand that all phenomena are impermanent, unsatisfactory, and non-self, attachment naturally falls away.

Life is like an ever-shifting kaleidoscope - a slight change, and all patterns alter.

The true mark of a spiritual practitioner is that your own behavior is better, not that you can criticize others well.

The practice is like peeling an onion. Layer after layer of delusion is removed through continuous mindfulness.

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

Understanding means throwing away your knowledge.

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

The spiritual journey is not about heaven and finally getting to a place that's really swell.

If you want to understand suffering, you must look into the situation at hand. The teachings say that wherever a problem arises it must be settled right there.

The affairs of the world will go on forever. Do not delay the practice of meditation.

The mind is everything. What you think you become.

The path to liberation requires both understanding and practice, both pariyatti and patipatti.

The movement of love is what creates the beauty in our lives.

Personal experience is everything in Zen. No ideas are intelligible to those who have no backing of experience.

Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.

Our own life has to be our message.

The essence of Buddhist practice is to bring everything onto the path. Every experience becomes an opportunity for awakening.

Our defilements are like tame tigers. If you feed them, they're tame. If you stop feeding them, they'll eat you up.

In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.

To what shall I compare this life? It is like a boat that left at dawn, leaving no trace.

In the moment of pure noting, there is no self - only the knowing and the known.

The path of practice requires both faith and wisdom, both devotion and understanding.

If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.

Silence is so much more productive of wisdom and clarity than thinking.

Better to have one moment of genuine meditation than to perform religious activities for a thousand years.

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

The treasure house within you contains everything, and you are free to use it. You don't need to seek outside.

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

The more you understand, the more you love; the more you love, the more you understand.

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

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

The biggest prison is the one we build in our own mind.

The realization of impermanence leads not to despair but to a deeper appreciation of the preciousness of each moment.

The Buddha's teachings are not a religion, but a science of mind.

Wisdom and compassion must be developed equally and harmoniously.

The farther you enter into truth, the deeper it is.

When you walk in the mist, you get wet.

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

Those who understand interdependent origination understand suffering, its origin, its cessation, and the path.

Since all things are empty of inherent existence, anything is possible. If things had inherent existence, nothing would be possible.

The way we look at the world is the way the world looks.

Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.