1. “Let us live simply in the freshness of the present moment, in the clarity of pure awakened mind.”
  2. “Children, old people, vagabonds laugh easily and heartily: they have nothing to lose and hope for little. In renunciation lies a delicious taste of simplicity and deep peace.”
  3. “Happiness is a skill, emotional balance is a skill, compassion and altruism are skills, and like any skill they need to be developed. That’s what education is about.”
  4. “There is no such thing as good and bad in an absolute sense. There is only the good and bad- the harm in terms of happiness and suffering- that our thoughts and our actions do to ourselves and others.”
  5. “Prepare yourself so that you have no regrets. Think now. The things that you do, like trying to get rid of your competitors, and making one more million dollars, are they going to bring you a peaceful death? Are you really going to be happy when you die?”
  6. “Happiness is a state of inner fulfillment, not the gratification of inexhaustible desires for outward things.”
  7. “Pure consciousness without content is something all those who meditate regularly and seriously have experienced—it is not just some sort of Buddhist theory.”
  8. “To grant forgiveness to someone who has truly changed is not a way of condoning or forgetting his or her past crimes, but of acknowledging whom he or she has become.”
  9. “While it may be difficult to change the world, it is always possible to change the way we look at it.”
  10. “Happiness is a state of inner fulfillment.”
  11. “Those whom summer’s heat tortures yearn for the full moon of autumn without even fearing the idea that a hundred days of their life then will have passed forever”
  12. “We must distinguish between spirituality in general terms, which aims to make us better people, and religion. Adopting a religion remains optional, but becoming a better human being is essential.”
  13. “We do all kinds of things to remain beautiful yet we spend surprisingly little time taking care of what matters most: the way our mind functions.”
  14. “Unlike pleasure, genuine happiness may be influenced by circumstance, but it isn’t dependent on it. It actually gives us the inner resources to deal better with those circumstances.”
  15. “It is the mind that translates good and bad circumstances into happiness or misery. So happiness comes with the purging of mental toxins, such as hatred, compulsive desire, arrogance and jealousy, which literally poison the mind. It also requires that one cease to distort reality and that one cultivate wisdom.”
  16. “According to Buddhism, time and space are just concepts created by our perception of the world, and have no existence apart from our perception. In other words, they are not ‘real.’ The idea of an absolute beginning of time and space is therefore flawed according to Buddhist thinking. We also believe that nothing, not even an apparent start of time and space, can come about without cause or conditions. In other words, nothing can start to exist or cease to exist. There can only be transformations. The Big Bang must then be a mere episode in a continuum without a beginning or an end.”
  17. “Worries are pointless. If there’s a solution, there’s no need to worry. If no solution exists, there’s no point to worry.”
  18. “Remember that there are two kinds of lunatics: those who don’t know that they must die, and those who have forgotten that they’re alive.”
  19. “Accepting death as a part of life serves as a spur to diligence and saves us from wasting our time on vain distractions.”
  20. “Happiness is a state of inner fulfillment, not the gratification of inexhaustible desires for outward things. The universe is not a mail-order catalogue for our desires and fancies.”
  21. “The pursuit of selfish happiness is bound to fail. It is a lose-lose situation in which we make ourselves miserable and create misery around us. In particular, we need to make significant progress concerning the way we treat animals, as objects of consumption and industrial products, not as living beings who strive for well-being and want to avoid suffering. In particular, we need to make significant progress concerning the way we treat animals, as objects of consumption and industrial products, not as living beings who strive for well-being and want to avoid suffering.”
  22. “In particular, we need to make significant progress concerning the way we treat animals, as objects of consumption and industrial products, not as living beings who strive for well-being and want to avoid suffering.”
  23. “Happiness can’t be reduced to a few agreeable sensations. Rather, it is a way of being and of experiencing the world—a profound fulfillment that suffuses every moment and endures despite inevitable setbacks.”
  24. “In the freshness of the present moment, past is gone, future is not yet born, and—if one remains in pure mindfulness and freedom—disturbing thoughts arise and go without leaving a trace. That is basic meditation.”
  25. “When we are overwhelmed by anger, we cannot dissociate from it. We perpetuate a vicious circle of affliction by rekindling anger each time we see or remember the person who makes us angry. We become addicted to the cause of suffering.”