In sitting meditation, we train in mindfulness and unconditional friendliness: in being steadfast with our bodies, our emotions, our thoughts.

We can learn to act and think in ways that sow seeds of our future well-being, gradually becoming more aware of what causes happiness as well as what causes distress.

Meditation practice is not about later, when you get it all together and you’re this person you really respect.

Meditation is a totally nonviolent, nonaggressive occupation.

IN practicing meditation, we’re not trying to live up to some kind of ideal—quite the opposite.

Many religions have meditations on death to let it penetrate our thick skulls that life doesn’t last forever.

Meditation practice isn’t about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better.

PATIENCE is the antidote to anger, a way to learn to love and care for whatever we meet on the path.

In Buddha’s opinion, to train in staying open and curious—to train in dissolving our assumptions and beliefs—is the best use of our human lives.

For you to be able to turn on the light in the darkness, you have to live in the light.

Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.

I am here

I think every artist should follow their vision, their hearts is what they need to reveal, not something that society is looking out for.

Something incomprehensible is not for that reason less real.

Was he still, somehow, watching over her?

Let the famous not denounce fame. Far from being empty and meaningless, it fills those it touches with divine power.

There's no in between-you're either good or bad. We were in between.

I teach about suffering and the way to end it

You reach a certain age -- sometimes it's fifteen, sometimes it's forty-six -- and you realize the cliche you have adopted for yourself isn't working.