If you are not living this moment, you are not really living.

Science and mindfulness complement each other in helping people to eat well and maintain their health and well-being.

Little by little, not by making big promises, I need to be calmer, read more, spend more time with my loved ones, and be more mindful about nature and environment.

When you get into your car, shut the door and be there for just half a minute. Breathe, feel the energy inside your body, look around at the sky, the trees. The mind might tell you, ‚I don’t have time.‘ But that’s the mind talking to you. Even the busiest person has time for 30 seconds of space.

If you like it you should enjoy it! Moderation in everything. If there’s things you really love, you should enjoy. You get one life, so you should enjoy it.

Die to everything of yesterday so that your mind is always fresh, always young, innocent, full of vigor and passion.

When someone is impatient and says, ‚I haven’t got all day,‘ I always wonder, How can that be? How can you not have all day?

To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.

When people get taken over by the ego to such an extent, there is nothing else in their mind except the ego. They can no longer feel or sense their humanity – what they share with other human beings, or even with other life forms on the planet. They are so identified with concepts in their minds that other human beings become concepts as well.

When the mind is empty, silent, when it is in a state of complete negation – which is not blankness, nor the opposite of being positive, but a totally different state in which all thought has ceased – only then is it possible for that which is unnameable to come into being.

I love to sit and eat quietly and enjoy each bite, aware of the presence of my community, aware of all the hard and loving work that has gone into my food.

Don’t run if you can walk. Don’t walk if you can stand. Don’t stand if you can sit. Don’t sit if you can lie down.

When one begins to live by habit and by quotation, one has begun to stop living.

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.

Every day I try to be in communication with the universe in an unconscious way.

I have the habit of attention to such excess, that my senses get no rest – but suffer from a constant strain.

By having a reverence for life, we enter into a spiritual relation with the world By practicing reverence for life we become good, deep, and alive.

Simplify, simplify.

Let go of yesterday.

Sometimes I lose my temper.

Freedom is not given to us by anyone; we have to cultivate it ourselves. It is a daily practice… No one can prevent you from being aware of each step you take or each breath in and breath out.

I think Buddhism should open the door of psychology and healing to penetrate more easily into the Western world.

I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.

Meditation has been a loyal friend to me. It has helped me write my books.

I’m an expert typist. I learned in high school. I would close my eyes and just type without worrying about mistakes. I tried to penetrate my heart, and as I let my thoughts drift, things bubbled up to the surface.

We should not fret for what is past, nor should we be anxious about the future; men of discernment deal only with the present moment.

As we must account for every idle word, so must we account for every idle silence.

If you have the insight of non-self, if you have the insight of impermanence, you should make that insight into a concentration that you keep alive throughout the day. Then what you say, what you think, and what you do will then be in the light of that wisdom and you will avoid making mistakes and creating suffering.

It’s very important that we re-learn the art of resting and relaxing. Not only does it help prevent the onset of many illnesses that develop through chronic tension and worrying; it allows us to clear our minds, focus, and find creative solutions to problems.

Some people die at 25 and aren’t buried until 75.

You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.

Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill.

There is a fine balance between honoring the past and losing yourself in it. For example, you can acknowledge and learn from mistakes you made, and then move on and refocus on the now. It is called forgiving yourself.

A mind at peace, a mind centered and not focused on harming others, is stronger than any physical force in the universe.

The situation the Earth is in today has been created by unmindful production and unmindful consumption. We consume to forget our worries and our anxieties. Tranquilising ourselves with over-consumption is not the way.

In Buddhism, we talk of meditation as an act of awakening, to be awake to the fact that the earth is in danger and living species are in danger.

I wonder how many decisions we make every day. I believe it’s probably hundreds. We decide whether or not to get out of bed, what we’ll eat, what we’ll do, what we’ll think about, what we’ll say… and on and on.

Enlightened people seldom or never possess a sense of responsibility.

Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight.

If we examine our thoughts, we shall find them always occupied with the past and the future.

You always have to remember that if you say something negative, it’s going to come back to haunt you.

My general attitude to life is to enjoy every minute of every day. I never do anything with a feeling of, ‚Oh God, I’ve got to do this today.‘

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.

We’ve fallen into a trap of ever-widening orbits of contact, and there is a total disregard for the present moment.

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.

I don’t know how to function without music. When I’m not making it, I’m listening to it. It gives me courage and takes care of my mind.

Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.

Nothing’s ever easy as long as you go on living.

You cannot always control what goes on outside. But you can always control what goes on inside.

Don’t wait to be successful at some future point. Have a successful relationship with the present moment and be fully present in whatever you are doing. That is success.

A man watches his pear tree day after day, impatient for the ripening of the fruit. Let him attempt to force the process, and he may spoil both fruit and tree. But let him patiently wait, and the ripe pear at length falls into his lap.

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

True self is non-self, the awareness that the self is made only of non-self elements. There’s no separation between self and other, and everything is interconnected.

Give yourself a gift of five minutes of contemplation in awe of everything you see around you. Go outside and turn your attention to the many miracles around you. This five-minute-a-day regimen of appreciation and gratitude will help you to focus your life in awe.

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.‘

For many people who are so lost in their minds, so much involved in their thought processes, the only moments they have when they are not trapped in that is when they are relating to their animal, their pet.

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

The truth is that there is no actual stress or anxiety in the world; it’s your thoughts that create these false beliefs. You can’t package stress, touch it, or see it. There are only people engaged in stressful thinking.

If you wish to forget anything on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered.

Conflict cannot survive without your participation.

I don’t try to control my days.