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

Looking for peace is like looking for a turtle with a mustache: you won't be able to find it. But when your heart is ready, peace will come looking for you.

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

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

By understanding emptiness, one understands all phenomena. Without understanding emptiness, one understands nothing.

Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.

If you want to know the past, look at the present. If you want to know the future, look at the present.

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

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

The quieter you become, the more you can hear.

The sign of wisdom is constant joy.

The most important thing in life is to know death is coming and to prepare for it.

Right View is not just a matter of intellectual understanding but of seeing things as they really are.

Karma is not fate but the law of moral causation, showing us that we are the architects of our own destiny.

Long is the night to him who is awake; long is a mile to him who is tired; long is life to the foolish who do not know the true law.

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

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.

You are an aperture through which the universe is looking at and exploring itself.

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

The entire path is a path of self-responsibility. Nobody else can walk it for you.

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

True love is not for the faint-hearted.

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

Time passes unhindered. When we make mistakes, we cannot turn the clock back and try again. All we can do is use the present well.

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

The law of nature is the law of cause and effect. As you sow, so shall you reap.

Every moment of confusion is also a moment of wisdom, if we can learn to recognize it.

The everyday practice is simply to develop complete acceptance and openness to all situations and emotions.

The measure of success in spiritual life is how peaceful you are.

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

If you want to find peace, then look at that point where you find you're dissatisfied and investigate what's really going on.

Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.

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.

Life is available only in the present moment.

The greatest obstacle to connecting with our joy is resentment.

Mindfulness isn't difficult, we just need to remember to do it.

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

A good friend who points out mistakes and imperfections and rebukes evil is to be respected as if he reveals a secret of hidden treasure.

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.

Your own treasure house contains everything you need; why search outside?

Mindfulness is the key to the present moment. Without it we cannot see the world clearly, and we cannot make the wisest choices in our lives.

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

Silence is sometimes the best answer.

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

Generosity generates its own enthusiasm. We don't have to force ourselves to be generous; we just need to start.

Self-awareness is the key to freedom. The more we understand ourselves, the more we understand how to be free.

Awareness is always with us. We don't need to create it or achieve it - we just need to recognize what's already there.

We do not "come into" this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree.

Wisdom and compassion must be developed equally and harmoniously.

Each moment of clear seeing is a moment of freedom from the illusion of permanence, satisfaction, and self.

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

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

The truth of suffering is not to be feared but to be understood through direct observation.

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.

A man is not called wise because he talks and talks again; but if he is peaceful, loving and fearless then he is in truth called wise.

The victorious ones have said that emptiness is the relinquishing of all views. Those who are possessed of the view of emptiness are said to be incurable.

Do not follow the ideas of others, but learn to listen to the voice within yourself.

Enlightenment is the realization that we were never really separate from one another or from all of life.