The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in one dewdrop on the grass.

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

True love is not for the faint-hearted.

Time passes unhindered. When we make ourselves better, we make the world better.

Enlightenment is not about becoming divine. Instead, it's about becoming more fully human.

The Buddha's teaching is a teaching of self-reliance, of being one's own master, one's own refuge.

Don't try to change the world. First, change yourself.

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

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

The past is just a memory. The future is just a dream. Be here now.

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

When dharma fills your body and mind, you realize that something is missing.

The past is gone, the future is not yet here. Live in the present moment with awareness.

Reality is only a Rorschach ink-blot, you know.

In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few.

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.

The more precisely you note, the more clearly you understand. The more clearly you understand, the stronger your insight becomes.

True peace is found not in the absence of experience but in the clear seeing of all experience.

Just as a snake sheds its skin, we must shed our past over and over again.

Mindfulness is not just bare attention but wise attention that leads to understanding and insight.

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

Where ignorance is our master, there is no possibility of real peace.

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

Awareness is like the sun. When it shines on things, they are transformed.

When you walk in the mist, you get wet.

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

True freedom is not the absence of commitment but the presence of choice.

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

Sankharas are the seeds of consciousness that manifest as sensations. By observing sensations equanimously, we stop creating new sankharas.

Understanding at the intellectual level is not enough. There must be experience at the actual level.

To understand everything is to forgive everything.

When one sees with wisdom that all phenomena are empty of inherent existence, one is liberated from suffering.

Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.

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

Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.

In the spring, hundreds of flowers; in autumn, a harvest moon; in the summer, a refreshing breeze; in winter, snow will accompany you. If useless things do not hang in your mind, any season is a good season for you.

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

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

There is no path to happiness: happiness is the path.

The force of the kindness of others is so strong, we can't possibly measure it.

Life is like a cup of tea. It's all in how you make it.

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

The sign of wisdom is constant joy.

The first noble truth of the Buddha is that life contains suffering. The second noble truth is that the cause of suffering is craving.

When we understand that peace is not dependent on external conditions, we can find it in the midst of any circumstance.

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.

Zen is not necessarily against words, but it is well aware of their limitations.

Things derive their being and nature by mutual dependence and are nothing in themselves.

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

You will not be punished for your anger; you will be punished by your anger.

The root of all suffering is ignorance. The antidote to ignorance is wisdom that realizes emptiness.

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

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

The true person is not anyone in particular. But like the deep blue color of the limitless sky, it is everyone, everywhere in the world.

Forgiveness is letting go of the hope that the past could have been any different.

Change is possible because there is nothing inherently permanent about our disturbing emotions.

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

If I had any position, I would thereby have a flaw. But since I have no position, I alone am without flaw.

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.

There is no difference at all between samsara and nirvana. There is no difference at all between nirvana and samsara.