Our task and challenge as human beings is to appreciate, in the same instant, both the infinite significance and absolute insignificance of life.

Even if things don’t unfold the way you expected, don’t be disheartened or give up. One who continues to advance will win in the end.

Compassion is not religious business, it is human business, it is not luxury, it is essential for our own peace and mental stability, it is essential for human survival.

You only lose what you cling to.

Suffering is universal. It’s the one thing Buddhists, Christians, and Muslims are all worried about.

My religion is to live – and die – without regret.

1. Accept everything just the way it is.2. Do not seek pleasure for its own sake.3. Do not, under any circumstances, depend on a partial feeling.4. Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world.5....

[T]here is nothing to say about life. It has no meaning. You make meaning. If you want a meaning in your life, find a meaning and bring it into your life, but life won’t give...

The manifestation of the free mind is said to be lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity.

If you’re constantly ruminating about what you just did- or what you should have done- or what you would have done if you only had the chance, you will miss your life. Ok, you will...

Nostalgia is an illness for those who haven’t realized that todayis tomorrow’s nostalgia.

As we live out of such a mind, we become generous, with no sense of tolerance. We become patient, with no sense of putting up with anything. We become compassionate, with no sense of separation....

You will bring yourself the suffering you need to bring yourself so that you may awaken.

As human beings, not only do we seek resolution, but we also feel that we deserve resolution. However, not only do we not deserve resolution, we suffer from resolution. We don’t deserve resolution; we deserve...

There is beauty all around us, and the light finds us when we realize, we are all part of that beauty and worth the cherishing. If we despise any, we journey to despise ourselves. See...

What is personal death?Asking this question and pausing to look inward – isn’t personal death a concept? Isn’t there a thought-and-picture series going on in the brain? These scenes of personal ending take place solely...

A student, filled with emotion and crying, implored, “Why is there so much suffering?”Suzuki Roshi replied, “No reason.

One of the best ways to support the development of patience is to cultivate happiness with yourself.

Our actions speak for us & they speak loudly.

No one looks or feels attractive when angry.

All beings tremble before danger, all fear death. When a man considers this, he does not kill or cause to kill.

But people of the deepest understanding look within, distracted by nothing. Since a clear mind is the Buddha, they attain the understanding of a Buddha without using the mind.

Your body is like a dew-drop on the morning grass, your life is as brief as a flash of lightning. Momentary and vain, it is lost in a moment. (From ‘Fukan zazengi’)

Involvement with the eight worldly dharmas keeps beings imprisoned in the realms of samsara and renders them susceptible to the hosts of emotions. The eight worldly dharmas are: praise and blame, gain and loss, fame...

A person, who no matter how desperate the situation, gives others hope, is a true leader.

We grow up to believe that we are supposed to somehow “become” who we are meant to be through the trial-by-fire that is life here on planet Earth.Reality is…there’s no “becoming”.It’s actually all an “un-becoming”,...

Monks, even if bandits were to savagely sever you, limb by limb, with a double-handled saw, even then, whoever of you harbors ill will at heart would not be upholding my Teaching. Monks, even in...

There is one element in Christianity which was not borrowed from Paganism — religious intolerance. Referring to Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism, a writer on China says: ‘Between the followers of the three national religions there...

Without inner peace, outer peace is impossible. We all wish for world peace, but world peace will never be acheived unless we first establish peace within our own minds. We can send so-called ‘peacekeeping forces’...

The teaching of the sexual tantras all come down to one point. Although desire, of whatever shape or form, seeks completion, there is another kind of union than the one we imagine. In this union,...

Mindfulness helps us get better at seeing the difference between what’s happening and the stories we tell ourselves about what’s happening, stories that get in the way of direct experience. Often such stories treat a...

Restore your attention or bring it to a new level by dramatically slowing down whatever you’re doing.

No one should ever despair because the entrance to his or her chosen career path is clogged. There is an ancient saying: “The persistent drip wears through stone.

People who are diagnosed as having “generalized anxiety disorder” are afflicted by three major problems that many of us experience to a lesser extent from time to time. First and foremost, says Rapgay, the natural...

The earth is black in front of the cliff, and no orchids grow.Creepers crawl in the brown mud by the path.Where did the birds of yesterday fly?To what other mountain did the animals go?Leopards and...

Life gives you exactly what you need to awaken.

The first noble truth of the Buddha is that when we feel suffering, it doesn’t mean that something is wrong. What a relief. Finally somebody told the truth. Suffering is part of life, and we...

Being vegetarian here also means that we do not consume dairy and egg products, because they are products of the meat industry. If we stop consuming, they will stop producing. Only collective awakening can create...

Religion is inevitably something that demands faith, or belief from us. Given the variety of forms of religion, it is natural that definitions of faith are also various. One interpretation, based on our discussion thus...

The source to low self-esteem is the lack of control you feel you have in your life. If you spend your life competing with others, trying to make right the wrongs done to you, or...

Miracles are (in late documents, I believe) recorded of the Buddha. But what could be more absurd than that he who came to teach us that Nature is an illusion from which we must escape...

When we are aware of our weaknesses or negative tendencies, we open the opportunity to work on them.

Old Soul” came from in the first place.

When a builder builds he clears the ground for his new foundations. Then he sees that the basic structure will support the whole. Should we not also clear the mind – at least that part...

…for you know that soft is stronger than hard, water stronger than rock, love stronger than force.” Vesadeva to Siddartha

This is, because that is. This is not, because that is not,” the Buddha taught. All the conditions have come together in such a way that we are where we are, and we are what...

What a miracle, that all we have to do to be beautifully loving creatures is just relax and allow.

Whether we eat, sleep, work, play, whatever we do life contains dissatisfaction, pain. If we enjoy pleasure, we are afraid to lose it; we strive for more and more pleasure or try to contain it....

These… things, householder, are welcome, agreeable, pleasant, & hard to obtain in the world:Long life is welcome, agreeable, pleasant, & hard to obtain in the world.Beauty is welcome, agreeable, pleasant, & hard to obtain in...

To seek the self, one must first have a clear idea of what one is looking for. Thus, some meditation manuals advise actively cultivating the sense of self, despite the fact that this sense is...