The only thing you ever have is now.

To complain is always nonacceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself into a victim. When you speak out, you are in your power. So change the situation by taking action or by speaking out if necessary or possible; leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness.

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

At one point I learned transcendental meditation. This was 30-something years ago. It took me back to the way that I naturally was as a child growing up way in the country, rarely seeing people. I was in that state of oneness with creation and it was as if I didn’t exist except as a part of everything.

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

Intense feeling too often obscures the truth.

There is such a thing as old emotional pain living inside you. It is an accumulation of painful life experience that was not fully faced and accepted in the moment it arose. It leaves behind an energy form of emotional pain.

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

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

Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.

I am in my own head most of the time.

Unless one is able to live fully in the present, the future is a hoax.

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.

Often, little situations trigger enormous reactions. Be there, present for it. Your partner will find it easier to see it in you, and you will find it easier to see it in them.

I think my worst problem is actually living in the moment and understanding everything that’s going on. I feel like I’m in my own bubble.

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.

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.

Is fear preventing you from taking action? Acknowledge the fear, watch it, take your attention into it, be fully present with it. Doing so cuts the link between the fear and your thinking. Don’t let the fear rise up into your mind. Use the power of the Now. Fear cannot prevail against it.

I shall the effect of this good lesson keeps as watchman to my heart.

I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it.

When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.

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.‘

The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.

Don’t be afraid to see what you see.

Never let yesterday use up too much of today.

Enjoy the satisfaction that comes from doing little things well.

Tomorrow is nothing, today is too late; the good lived yesterday.

A man should always consider how much he has more than he wants.

Nothing is worth more than this day.

My life is mine to remember.

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

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

I can’t play bridge. I don’t play tennis. All those things that people learn, and I admire, there hasn’t seemed time for. But what there is time for is looking out the window.

To do nothing is also a good remedy.

We should all start to live before we get too old.

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.

We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put something before us to prevent us seeing it.

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

One can not reflect in streaming water. Only those who know internal peace can give it to others.

Every day is a gift from God. There’s no guarantee of tomorrow, so that tells me to see the good in this day to make the most of it.

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

You might not have the things you want, but if you check carefully, you got all you need.

Do not seek to bring things to pass in accordance with your wishes, but wish for them as they are, and you will find them.

The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost.

I used to meditate all the time in bed. That was when I was raising my daughter, and I’d get her up and off to school, and then I would go back to bed and meditate. And then I would do the same in the evening, and that was very good for that period because I had so many things to juggle as a single mother.

Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.

Once I realized that right thinking is vital to victorious living, I got more serious about thinking about what I was thinking about, and choosing my thoughts carefully.

He who does not mind his belly, will hardly mind anything else.

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

You have to stay fresh and blank in your mind when you go out to bat. You complicate things, and you’re gone.

The simple act of paying attention can take you a long way.

When thou art above measure angry, bethink thee how momentary is man’s life.

One ought to hold on to one’s heart; for if one lets it go, one soon loses control of the head too.

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

Day by day we should weigh what we have granted to the spirit of the world against what we have denied to the spirit of Jesus, in thought and especially in deed.

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.

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.

Wow, I get to wake up again? Ok. You have to make good with what you’ve got.

If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it.

In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion.