Metta sees truly that our integrity is inviolate, no matter what our life situation may be. We do not need to fear anything. We are whole: our deepest happiness is intrinsic to the nature of...

Everyone makes mistakes. Whether we put our mistakes to use depends on how deeply we reflect on our actions. It is desirable to reflect until the tears come. – On Self-Reflection –

The self-refinery of Buddhism does not lie in the form of exercise. Not all people sitting in a lotus position can reach real Zen – if they are obsessed by desires. Instead, a pure heart,...

Cease striving. Then there will be transformation.

Praise and blame, gain and loss, pleasure and pain, fame and disripute, these are just the worldly winds of existence.

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

Mindfulness is the awareness of what is going on in us and around us in the present moment. It requires stopping, looking deeply, and recognizing both the uniqueness of the moment and its connection to...

On the other hand, we can all call to mind the case of seeing the same thing many times over and over. Everyone has had the experience of having their impression of a particular object...

I loved the quiet places in Kyoto, the places that held the world within a windless moment. Inside the temples, Nature held her breath. All longing was put to sleep in the stillness, and all...

Again and again, counteract the agitation and turbulence of the mind by relaxing more deeply, not by contracting the body or mind.

Remind yourself that your mental & emotional health are important.

First, rely on the spirit and meaning of the teachings, not on the words;Second, rely on the teachings, not on the personality of the teacher;Third, rely on real wisdom, not superficial interpretation;And fourth, rely on...

How long the path may be depends for any man on where he stands today and his speed of travel. These are his past and present choosing, but the beginning of the way is here...

Love requires learning to love ourselves in the mirror, and learning to look other people in the eye. Buddhism, in turn, asks us to pause and look at even the subtlest causal connections and take...

Thoughts don’t become things; thoughts ARE things.

It is possible to refine awareness itself so much that the emptiness of things, and the role mental construction plays, becomes a directly apprehended reality.

If you put a spoonful of saltin a cup of waterit tastes very salty.If you put a spoonful of saltin a lake of fresh waterthe taste is still pure and clear.Peace comes when our hearts...

Better than a thousand hollow words is one word that brings peace.

If you want to help sentient beings, you have to get your hands dirty.

Without hope, Chöd practitioners are freed from the limits of hope and fear; having cut the ropes of grasping, definitely enlightened, where does one go?

I was only beginning to enter into the infinite subtlety of Gregorian chant. It was – and remains – the only public prayer I have ever been able to engage in without feeling like a...

I sit in meditation…and soon all sounds, and all one sees and feels, take on imminence, an immanence, as if the Universe were coming to attention, a Universe of which one is the center, a...

When we practice metta, we open continuously to the truth of our actual experience, changing our relationship to life.

To reteach a thing its loveliness is the nature of metta. Through lovingkindness, everyone & everything can flower again from within.

Kundalini means, according to Zeena ‘She Who is Hidden,’ and points to the dormant goddess in every human being’s body. While the kundalini force is found in muladharachakra, she hypnotizes humans, like maya herself, and...

Life is a series of awakenings.

If the eye never sleeps,all dreams will naturally cease.If the mind makes no discriminations, the ten thousand things are as they are,of single essence.To understand the mystery of this One essence is to be released...

Rather than going after these walls and barriers with a sledgehammer, we pay attention to them. With gentleness and honesty, we move closer to those walls. We touch them, and smell them and get to...

It is my conviction that there is no way to peace – peace is the way.

If we lack the proper antidotes of emptiness and bodhichitta, we will not be able to control our minds when frightening appearances manifest. It is considered a sign of progress in this practice if we...

Beyond this life andThis world I’ll have it tilMy heart’s content:The bright moon that passed overThe horizon before I had my fill.

I do not believe in religion, but if I had to choose one, it would be Buddhism. It seems more livable, closer to men.

Directing the mind to stay in the present can be a formidable task.

To forgive does not mean to condone.

On considering these instances it is indubitably clear that sati has a crucial role to fulfill in the realm of samatha. This might be why the Cūḷavedalla Sutta speaks of satipaṭṭhāna as the “cause” of...

For eternally and always there is only now, one and the same now; the present is the only thing that has no end.

This is what it means to be mindful. To watch the thoughts as they come and go without judgment while completely accepting what arises in the present moment.

Can the water in the valleys ever stop and rest?When the water finally reaches the sea, it becomes great waves.

The institutions of human society treat us as parts of a machine. They assign us ranks and place considerable pressure upon us to fulfill defined roles. We need something to help us restore our lost...

Like a lamp, dispelling the darkness of ignorance

Whatever a monk keeps pursuing with his thinking and pondering, that becomes the inclination of his awareness.

Not till your thoughts cease all their branching here and there, not till you abandon all thoughts of seeking for something, not till your mind is motionless as wood or stone, will you be on...

Refutations of the views of inherently existent production are not just refutations of rival systems but should be taken as a branch of the process of overcoming one’s own innate sense that things are inherently...

The application of this knife, the division of the world into parts and the building of this structure, is something everybody does. All the time we are aware of millions of things around us –...

The key to cultivating confidence in ourselves is understanding our right to make the truth our own.

How wonderful it would be if people did all they could for one other without seeking anything in return! One should never remember a kindness done, and never forget a kindness received.

When all that’s left of us is the pure untainted consciousness without form, we’ll know what it means when the last human breath expires.

This body is fragile. It is just flesh. Listen to the heartbeat. Life depends on the pumping of a muscle.

We find what’s in our own heads.

As the twelfth-century Tibetian yogi Milarepa said when he heard of his student Gampopa’s peak experiences, ‘They are neither good nor bad. Keep meditating.’