Quotes

Determine if happiness comes from getting what you wanted or from the ending of the desire.
— Shaila Catherine

Mindfulness gives you time. Time gives you choices. Choices, skillfully made, lead to freedom.
— Henepola Gunaratana

Use every distraction as an object of meditation and they cease to be distractions.
— Mingyur Rinpoche

If my mind doesn’t go out to disturb the noise, the noise won’t disturb me.
— Ajahn Chah

Among you there are persons with various strengths and weaknesses, but you should all observe the vegetation of the four seasons, the leaves falling and the flowers blooming, events that have gone on for an incalculable aeon. The gods, humankind, all the realms of existence – earth, water, fire, and wind – all of these things come to completion and pass away in the cycle of existence.
— Lingyun Zhiqin

Do you have the patience to wait
till your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving
till the right action arises by itself?
— Tao Te Ching

Stop thinking, and end your problems.
— Tao Te Ching

All of heaven and earth come forth from your own body. So where would you go to gain peace for the eyes, the ears, the nose, and the tongue?
—Jiufeng Daoqian

All tempest has, like a navel, a hole in its middle through which a gull can fly in silence.
—Harold Bynner

We don’t react to the events or memories, but in reality, we constantly react to the sensations in our bodies.
—Yuval Noah Harari

Do not search for the truth;
only cease to cherish opinions.
—Sengcan

Think not lightly of evil, saying, “It will not come to me.” Drop by drop is the water pot filled. Likewise, the fool, gathering it little by little, fills himself with evil.

Think not lightly of good, saying, “It will not come to me.” Drop by drop is the water pot filled. Likewise, the wise man, gathering it little by little, fills himself with good.
—Dhammapada

Rubbing my eyes in the morning,
I began complaining;
Out jumped namu-amida-butsu,
And I really woke up.
—Haru Matsuda

No matter where you stay, be it a busy place or a solitary retreat, you only need to conquer your mind’s five poisons (attachment, aversion, indifference, jealousy, and pride), and your own true enemies, the eight worldly concerns (pleasure and pain, gain and loss, fame and infamy, praise and censure) — nothing else.
—Chatral Rinpoche

My mind relies on nothing, so when night falls, I simply stop.
My body lives nowhere, so at the break of day, I leave once again.
Because my robe of patience is thick, I cannot be injured by canes, sticks, tiles, or rocks.
Because the room of my compassion is large, I do not hear mocking or hostility.
Because I recite the samadhi of the Name with faith, the entire marketplace is my place of practice.
Because I see the Buddha by hearing my own voice, my breath is my string of prayer beads.
Each night I await the welcome of the Buddha; each morning I rejoice that the end draws near.
I surrender my three actions to karma and entrust my four postures to awakening.
—Kuya Shonin

When for you there will be only the seen in reference to the seen, only the heard in reference to the heard, only the sensed in reference to the sensed, only the cognized in reference to the cognized, then, Bāhiya, there is no you in connection with that. When there is no you in connection with that, there is no you there. When there is no you there, you are neither here nor yonder nor between the two. This, just this, is the end of stress.
—Bahiya Sutta

Devotion is awareness of impermanence;
devotion is the mind of renunciation;
devotion is compassion for all sentient beings;
devotion is the experience of dependent arising.
Most importantly, the moment there is devotion,
you have the view, and there is awareness of emptiness.
—Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche