Our true buddha-nature has no shape. And the dust of affliction has no form.

As long as you look for a Buddha somewhere else, you'll never see that your own mind is the Buddha

When you don't understand, you depend on reality. When you do understand, reality depends on you.

Not thinking about anything is Zen. Once you know this, walking, sitting, or lying down, everything you do is Zen.

Once you stop clinging and let things be, you'll be free, even of birth and death. You'll transform everything.

All know the way, but few actually walk it.

If you use your mind to study reality, you won't understand either your mind or reality. If you study reality without using your mind, you'll understand both.

To seek is to suffer. To seek nothing is bliss.

The essence of the Way is detachment. And the goal of those who practice is freedom from appearances.

The true Way is sublime. It can't be expressed in language. Of what use are scriptures? But someone who sees his own nature finds the Way, even if he can't read a word.

The ignorant mind, with its infinite afflictions, passions, and evils, is rooted in the three poisons. Greed, anger, and delusion.

There are few sources of energy so powerful as a procrastinating college student.

The wounded can inflict the most painful wound without hesitation.

There's only one thing in life more dangerous than a bad idea, and that's a good one.

As it was, being a Zimbabwean immigrant was the worst thing a person could be in Southern Africa. They were the new Hebrews – homeless.

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.

we are not here just because we have nowhere else; we need nowhere else, because we have the Institute, and those who are in it are our family.

Worship does not consist in prayers and in external devotion, but in a life of kindness.

In art it's not the thinking that does the job, but making.

Even true believers had consciences, Too bad.

I have never regretted my silence. As for my speech, I have regretted it over and over again.