Erotic names, robes, insignia of office, titles- the trappings of religion- confuse as much as they help.

The origin of the conflict, frustration, and anxiety we experience does not lie in the nature of the world itself but in our distorted conceptions of the world.

Buddhism, I think, is probably facing the single most difficult transition from one historical epoch to another, which is really the transition to modernity.

Consciousness is an emergent, contingent, and impermanent phenomenon. It has no magical capacity to break free from the field of events out of which it springs.

While 'Buddhism' suggests another belief system, 'dharma practice' suggests a course of action. The four ennobling truths are not propositions to believe; they are challenges to act.

What is it that makes a person insist passionately on the existence of metaphysical realities that can be neither demonstrated nor refuted? (176)

In taking life for granted, we fail to notice it.

The problem with certainty is that it is static; it can do little but endlessly reassert itself. Uncertainty, by contrast, is full of unknowns, possibilities, and risks.

The greatest threat to compassion is the temptation to succumb to fantasies of moral superiority.

To embrace suffering culminates in greater empathy, the capacity to feel what it is like for the other to suffer, which is the ground for unsentimental compassion and love.

This body is fragile. It is just flesh. Listen to the heartbeat. Life depends on the pumping of a muscle.

And please return it. You may think this a strange request, but I find that although my friends are poor arithmeticians, they are nearly all of them good bookkeepers.

“A goal without a plan is just a wish.”

When money functions as measure of value it must truly represent the values it helps to circulate.

We're going to make sure that the people who run for office and get elected are the ones who are going to work for the American people.

You can still function as a living ruin.

The Old and New Testaments contain but one scheme of religion. Neither part of this scheme can be understood without the other.

Let us say what we feel, and feel what we say; let speech harmonize with life.

The beauty of age is we grow, we learn. We have more wisdom.

Looks to me, Vince, like you hit a hole in one.

We can change our circumstances by a mere change of our attitude.