If someone comes along and shoots an arrow into your heart, it’s fruitless to stand there and yell at the person. It would be much better to turn your attention to the fact that there’s...

Suffering has many faces. If we discover the roots of one suffering, we are at the same time discovering the roots of others.

The main difference between us, Buddhism and other philosophies, is that we do not accept the notion of a living god, but rather that we are responsible for our future happiness.

Buddhism helps people to overcome pain. The deepest pain that Chinese people feel now is the pain of separation from loved ones, one of the eight pains in Buddhism.

People go through life blindly, ignoring death like revellers at a party feasting on fine foods. They ignore that later they will have to go to the toilet, so they do not bother to find...

Suffering usually relates to wanting things to be different from the way they are.

Compassion is not complete if it does not include oneself.

Many do not realize that we here must die. For those who realize this, quarrels end.

What struck me, in reading the reports from Sri Lanka, was the mild disgrace of belonging to our imperfectly evolved species in the first place. People who had just seen their neighbors swept away would...

So, without telling any of my Zen-snob buddies, I liked to pretend everything was the Pure Land, that my life was already perfect as it was.

Actively, we are motivated by the never-ending desires of the self. We are compelled to pursue whatever the self imagines will satisfy its desires. We are convinced that satisfaction of desire is the source of...

Instead of engaging in cutthroat competition, we should strive to create value. In economic terms, this means a transition from a consumer economy – the mad rush for ownership and consumption – to a constructive...

To know yourself you must know the transience of your self.

The virtuous man delights in this world and he delights in the next

This kind of renunciation, in fact, has often been the strength, born of necessity, of the world’s disinherited, of those who do not fit in with their surroundings or with their own body or with...

There is no miserable place waiting for you, no hell realm, sitting and waiting like Alaska—waiting to turn you into ice cream. But whatever you call it—hell or the suffering realms—it is something that you...

Meditation did not relieve me of my anxiety so much as flesh it out. It took my anxious response to the world, about which I felt a lot of confusion and shame, and let me...

We need the courage to learn from our past and not live in it.

Meditation is a cyclical process that defies analysis, but demands acceptance.

Bliss and suffering, it seems, always go hand in hand.

True compassion is undirected & holds no conceptual focus. That kind of genuine, true compassion is only possible after realizing emptiness.

We are participatory beings who inhabit a participatory reality, seeking relationships that enhance our sense of what it means to be alive. In terms of dharma practice, a true friend is more than just someone...

The mind is limitless, in its creations.

Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things...

In these times where it has seemed dark indeedwhere integrity appears solely buried in legend and lore, it is an opportunity in contrast to the shadows, to create miracles…by choosing first courage, then diligence, standing,...

When happiness is liked by me and others equally, what is so special about me that I should strive after happiness only for myself?

The problem with people that ignore people they dislike is they can’t ignore them. Anger carries a person in your mind forever, whether you choose to speak to them or not. Therefore, don’t mistake prosperity...

hasn’t got a damn thing to do with anything, ‘cause all it has to do with is nothing. Nothingness. Okay? It doesn’t develop the mind, it dissolves the mind. Self-improvement? Forget it, baby. It erases...

When we speak of the sangha, we speak of the “arya sangha,” which means the “exalted sangha”. At the time of the Buddha this referred to the arhats and bodhisattvas, the disciples who studied under...

Any methodology for developing patience requires a multi-tiered approach.

[S]he believed that the Buddhists were right–that if you want, you will suffer; if you love, you will grieve. (68)

It follows that I must accept myself for what I am before I can deliberately change it.

We are not going in circles, we are going upwards. The path is a spiral; we have already climbed many steps.

Although social and personal circumstances will play their part in contributing to how an individual suffers, in Buddhist thought blame is seen as a “poison” that will only lead to negative actions and will do...

For the Buddha of the Pali Canon, the goal is liberation: the cessation of suffering, the end of the endless hamster-wheel of dependent origination, of mental formations leading to desire leading to clinging leading to...

There are some among the so-called elite who are overbearing and arrogant. I want to foster leaders, not elitists.

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 forms of the central and surrounding deities… should not be protruding like a clay statue or cast image, yet neither should they be flat like a painting. In contrast, they should be apparent, yet...

There’s a limit to my patience with anything that smacks of metaphysics. I squirm at the mention of “mind expansion” or “warm healing energy.” I don’t like drum circles, public nudity or strangers touching my...

But sometimes you simply can’t make yourself feel like acting. And in those situations, motivational advice risks making things worse, by surreptitiously strengthening your belief that you need to feel motivated before you act. By...

All the repetitions in the pattern were superficial; the moment was always new. It had to be lived, and then the next moment embraced as it arrived.

Life is very simple. Just sometimes put your head away, sometimes behead yourself, sometimes look with no clouds in the eyes – just look. Sometimes sit by the side of a tree – just feel....

To relinquish the futile effort to control change is one of the strengthening forces of true detachment & thus true love.

Pain is not wrong. Reacting to pain as wrong initiates the trance of unworthiness. The moment we believe something is wrong, our world shrinks and we lose ourselves in the effort to combat the pain.

What we call life…is the combination of the Five Aggregates, a combination of physical and mental energies. These are constantly changing; they do not remain the same for two consecutive moments. Every moment they are...

To become enlightened is not just to slip into some disconnected euphoria, an oceanic feeling of mystic oneness apart from ordinary reality. It is not even to come up with a solution, a sort of...

The difference between theism and nontheism is not whether one does or does not believe in God. . . Theism is a deep-seated conviction that there’s some hand to hold: if we just do the...

The son needs the father to have access to his source, and the father needs the son to have access to the future and the infinite.

Bhikkhus, the teaching is merely a vehicle to describe the truth. Don’t mistake it for the truth itself. A finger pointing at the moon is notthe moon. The finger is needed to know where to...

I’d like to dividemyself in order to see,among these mountains,each and every flowerof every cherry tree.