We cannot choose whether to engage with the world, only how to.

The origin of the conflict, frustration, and anxiety we experience does not lie in the nature of the world itself but in our distorted conceptions of the world.

Buddhism, I think, is probably facing the single most difficult transition from one historical epoch to another, which is really the transition to modernity.

Consciousness is an emergent, contingent, and impermanent phenomenon. It has no magical capacity to break free from the field of events out of which it springs.

While 'Buddhism' suggests another belief system, 'dharma practice' suggests a course of action. The four ennobling truths are not propositions to believe; they are challenges to act.

What is it that makes a person insist passionately on the existence of metaphysical realities that can be neither demonstrated nor refuted? (176)

In taking life for granted, we fail to notice it.

The problem with certainty is that it is static; it can do little but endlessly reassert itself. Uncertainty, by contrast, is full of unknowns, possibilities, and risks.

The greatest threat to compassion is the temptation to succumb to fantasies of moral superiority.

To embrace suffering culminates in greater empathy, the capacity to feel what it is like for the other to suffer, which is the ground for unsentimental compassion and love.

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

Friendship improves happiness and abates misery by doubling our joy and dividing our grief.

It is the soul's duty to be loyal to its own desires.

Prosperity is a way of living and thinking, and not just money or things.

An esoteric or enlightened teacher of Buddhism is someone who has the ability to transfer power to another individual. A real empowerment is not just a ceremony.

Always remember this: If you don't attend the funerals of your friends, they will certainly not attend yours.

Praise is the highest occupation of any being

People are like birds: on the wing, all beautiful; up close, all beady little eyes.

Everybody seems to wonder what it's like down here. I gotta get away from this day-to-day running around. Everybody knows this is nowhere.

You treat a disease, you win, you lose. You treat a person, I guarantee you, you'll win, no matter what the outcome.

I am living and having supernatural experiences. A lot of people get really freaked out about that. I speak in tongues; I've been baptized in the Holy Spirit.