Meditation is about seeing clearly the body that we have, the mind that we have, the domestic situation that we have, the job that we have, and the people who are in our lives.

While we are sitting in meditation, we are simply exploring humanity and all of creation in the form of ourselves.

There isn’t any hell or heaven except for how we relate to our world. Hell is just resistance to life.

The meditation technique itself cultivate precision, gentleness, and the ability to let go - qualities that are innate within us.

One of the main discoveries of meditation is seeing how we continually run away from the present moment, how we avoid being here just as we are.

The path of meditation and the path of our lives altogether ha to do with curiosity, inquisitiveness.

We're here to get to know and study ourselves. The path, the way to do that, our main vehicle, is going to be meditation, and some sense of general wakefulness.

Meditation is a process of lightening up, of trusting the basic goodness of what we have and who we are, and of realizing that any wisdom that exists, exists in what we already have.

We don't have to be harsh with ourselves when we think, sitting here, that our meditation or our oryoki or the way we are in the world is in the category of worst horse.

The problem is that the desire to change is fundamentally a form of aggression toward yourself.

The first noble truth says simply that it’s part of being human to feel discomfort.

I want you to take note, Commander, that turning in my badge would be like cutting off my arm. But if it comes down to a choice between the job and my marriage, then I lose the arm.

I am a big fan of movies from the ’70s.

If you want to get out of medicine the fullest enjoyment, be students all your lives.

It doesn't bother me because I can tell everyone to kiss off.

If I don't like something that's going on in my life, I change it. And I don't sit and complain about it for a year.

Writers, unlike most people, tell their best lies when they are alone.

I prefer to remember the happy things over 10 years, the things that went well. Let me see, what did go well?

I think my favorite fact about myself is that I have never been dismayed by a critic's bilge or bile, and have never once in my life asked or thanked a reviewer for a review.

Demand me nothing: what you know, you know.