I’ve been in beautiful landscapes where one is tempted to whip out a camera and take a picture. I’ve learned to resist that.

Really, the only thing that makes sense is to strive for greater collective enlightenment.

Everything you need you already have. You are complete right now, you are a whole, total person, not an apprentice person on the way to someplace else. Your completeness must be understood by you and experienced in your thoughts as your own personal reality.

Drag your thoughts away from your troubles… by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it.

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

Freedom from effort in the present merely means that there has been effort stored up in the past.

I try to live what I teach. A lot of things come against us in life, but we should try to find something to be grateful for, and see each day as a gift.

Execute every act of thy life as though it were thy last.

Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life.

Life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quickly you hardly catch it going.

Fear keeps us focused on the past or worried about the future. If we can acknowledge our fear, we can realize that right now we are okay. Right now, today, we are still alive, and our bodies are working marvelously. Our eyes can still see the beautiful sky. Our ears can still hear the voices of our loved ones.

I walk every day, and I look at the mountains and the fields and the small city, and I say: ‚Oh my God, what a blessing.‘ Then you realise it’s important to put it in a context beyond this woman, this man, this city, this country, this universe.

The problem with meditating is I generally go to sleep, and that’s because I’m doing it wrong.

If it’s stress of things that we cannot control, what you have to do is you mitigate that stress as much as possible. You’ve planned, you’ve trained, you’ve done everything you can in your power to mitigate the stress that’s facing you. And then after that, there’s nothing you can do. So, you have to let that one go.

I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.

I’m one of the slowest drivers on the road. I mosey along. If you’re doing anything too fast, including living life too fast, that creates sudden death. If I have to be somewhere on time, I make sure I leave early enough.

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.

When you’re outside, and everything is highland, it’s like nature has its own sound, and that’s one of my favorite sounds. I really loved sitting still silently outside, in a tree or in a bush, to just think.

Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

Everything that happens happens as it should, and if you observe carefully, you will find this to be so.

Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.

Don’t wait for the last judgment – it takes place every day.

There are as many pillows of illusion as flakes in a snow-storm. We wake from one dream into another dream.

Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.

Control and surrender have to be kept in balance. That’s what surfers do – take control of the situation, then be carried, then take control. In the last few thousand years, we’ve become incredibly adept technically. We’ve treasured the controlling part of ourselves and neglected the surrendering part.

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?

A quick temper will make a fool of you soon enough.

The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love colour the most.

Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.

To meditate means to go home to yourself. Then you know how to take care of the things that are happening inside you, and you know how to take care of the things that happen around you.

We go on in our pleasures thinking they’re going to last forever.

You can either be a host to God, or a hostage to your ego. It’s your call.

Think twice before you speak, because your words and influence will plant the seed of either success or failure in the mind of another.

There are so many emotions that you’re feeling, you can get stifled by them if you’re feeling them all at once. What I try to do is take one moment – one simple, simple feeling – and expand it into three-and-a-half minutes.

When we go out to the country and just sit there, what we’re really doing is just switching off various kinds of alertness that we don’t have to use. When we do that, we are stopping being defensive. We are no longer shutting ourselves off from different types of experiences, we are welcoming them in.

I never make conscious decisions.

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.

The deferring of anger is the best antidote to anger.

Those who are free of resentful thoughts surely find peace.

The best cure for the body is a quiet mind.

Never find fault with the absent.

The more you live in the present moment, the more the fear of death disappears.

Do the best you can, and don’t take life too serious.

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.

Never let yesterday use up too much of today.

Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill. Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt.

Little things affect little minds.

The power for creating a better future is contained in the present moment: You create a good future by creating a good present.

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

Find joy and solace in the simple, and cultivate your utopia by feeling the Tao in every cubic inch of space.

I’m grateful for always this moment, the now, no matter what form it takes.

Thou wilt find rest from vain fancies if thou doest every act in life as though it were thy last.

No valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.

Conflict cannot survive without your participation.

Every day we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words.

The true art of memory is the art of attention.

If every day you practice walking and sitting meditation and generate the energy of mindfulness and concentration and peace, you are a cell in the body of the new Buddha. This is not a dream but is possible today and tomorrow.

Meditation is to be aware of every thought and of every feeling, never to say it is right or wrong, but just to watch it and move with it. In that watching, you begin to understand the whole movement of thought and feeling. And out of this awareness comes silence.

The man who acquires the ability to take full possession of his own mind may take possession of anything else to which he is justly entitled.

A great hallmark of mental wellness is the ability to be in the present moment, fully and with no thoughts of being elsewhere.

Be careless in your dress if you must, but keep a tidy soul.