Do every act of your life as if it were your last.

Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame.

Forget the past.

Most humans are never fully present in the now, because unconsciously they believe that the next moment must be more important than this one. But then you miss your whole life, which is never not now.

That’s the biggest gift I can give anybody: ‚Wake up, be aware of who you are, what you’re doing and what you can do to prevent yourself from becoming ill.‘

The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness.

Enlightened people seldom or never possess a sense of responsibility.

Step with care and great tact, and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act.

Everything’s intentional. It’s just filling in the dots.

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.

I’ve learned people are watching, so don’t do nothing stupid.

It is the quality of the moment, not the number of days, or events, or of actors, that imports.

Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.

Getting stress out of your life takes more than prayer alone. You must take action to make changes and stop doing whatever is causing the stress. You can learn to calm down in the way you handle things.

I have inhaled, exhaled everything.

I don’t carry the burden of the past or the madness of the future. I live in the present.

If you know how to worry, you know how to meditate. It means to think of something over and over.

Be content with what you are, and wish not change; nor dread your last day, nor long for it.

Let everyone try and find that as a result of daily prayer he adds something new to his life, something with which nothing can be compared.

Meditation demands an astonishingly alert mind; it is the understanding of the totality of life in which every form of fragmentation has ceased.

Even with all of the things that are so awful, if you walk into your yard and stay there looking at almost anything for five minutes, you will be stunned by how marvelous life is and how incredibly lucky we are to have it.

One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today.

The mind that is anxious about the future is miserable.

What’s the good of drawing in the next breath if all you do is let it out and draw in another?

Get action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become an oyster.

It is important to remember yourself.

I’m very, very serious – I’m serious enough not to take myself too seriously. That means I can be completely wedded to the moment. But when I leave that moment, I want to be completely wedded to the next moment.

Remember, you can always stoop and pick up nothing.

Peace begins with a smile.

I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartanlike as to put to rout all that was not life.

There are many things that happen every day that we could murmur about if we let ourselves go there. But they really aren’t worth the effort it takes to get upset and gripe about it.

Total relaxation is the secret to enjoying sitting meditation. I sit with my spine upright, but not rigid; and I relax all the muscles in my body.

When you practice gratefulness, there is a sense of respect toward others.

I’m not a New Age person, but I do believe in meditation, and for that reason I’ve always liked the Buddhist religion. When I’ve been to Japan, I’ve been to Buddhist temples and meditated, and I found that rewarding.

If you aren’t in the moment, you are either looking forward to uncertainty, or back to pain and regret.

The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.

It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure on the world.

To be awake is to be alive.

I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another.

Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.

A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man’s life as in a book. Haste makes waste, no less in life than in housekeeping. Keep the time, observe the hours of the universe, not of the cars.

Each day provides its own gifts.

I spent years studying the teachings of Patanjali, and he reminded us several thousand years ago that when we are steadfast – which means that we never slip in our abstention of thoughts of harm directed toward others – then all living creatures cease to feel enmity in our presence.

Life’s short. Anything could happen, and it usually does, so there is no point in sitting around thinking about all the ifs, ands and buts.

Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.

It’s normal for human beings to identify with their own separate self. The problem is that we get caught in that notion of ourself as a separate individual and caught in that individual self’s agenda.

Life is one big road with lots of signs. So when you riding through the ruts, don’t complicate your mind. Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy. Don’t bury your thoughts, put your vision to reality. Wake Up and Live!

I wake up some mornings and sit and have my coffee and look out at my beautiful garden, and I go, ‚Remember how good this is. Because you can lose it.‘

The gigantic tension before the shooting of an arrow, and the total relaxation seconds later, is my way of connecting to the universe.

So when you are listening to somebody, completely, attentively, then you are listening not only to the words, but also to the feeling of what is being conveyed, to the whole of it, not part of it.

I can very well do without God both in my life and in my painting, but I cannot, suffering as I am, do without something which is greater than I am, which is my life, the power to create.

Compassionate listening is to help the other side suffer less. If we realize that other people are the same people as we are, we are no longer angry at them.

Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you must choose now. Then accept the consequences.

I am a simple Buddhist monk – no more, no less.

Nurture your minds with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes.

With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now.

When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.

Meditation can help us embrace our worries, our fear, our anger; and that is very healing. We let our own natural capacity of healing do the work.

I guess I’m living in the present more than the past.

The torment of precautions often exceeds the dangers to be avoided. It is sometimes better to abandon one’s self to destiny.