There are, strictly speaking, no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity.

Leave your front door and your back door open. Allow your thoughts to come and go. Just don't serve them tea.

When you do something, you should burn yourself up completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.

Nothing outside yourself can cause any trouble. You yourself make the waves in your mind. If you leave your mind as it is, it will become calm. This mind is called big mind.

Treat every moment as your last. It is not preparation for something else.

If you can just appreciate each thing, one by one, then you will have pure gratitude. Even though you observe just one flower, that one flower includes everything

The most important point is to accept yourself and stand on your two feet.

Wherever you go you will find your teacher, as long as you have the eyes to see and the ears to hear.

As soon as you see something, you already start to intellectualize it. As soon as you intellectualize something, it is no longer what you saw.

It must be obvious...that there is a contradiction in wanting to be perfectly secure in a universe whose very nature is momentariness and fluidity.

When my master and I were walking in the rain, he would say, 'Do not walk so fast, the rain is everywhere.'

People who wouldn't dream of drowning a puppy in a barrel full of water think nothing of killing a fish the same slow way.

Encouraging words are hands that pool others from the despair of life.

If sleep wasn't necessary, I would have used those 8 hours to gaze at you.

If you complain to someone, you assume that it's someone who really cares about you.

Don Quixote's 'Delusions' is an excellent read - far better than my own forthcoming travel book, 'Walking Backwards Across Tuscany.'

When I was younger I was completely without money - when I was studying in Budapest, when I was a refugee.

I'm in the mood to get faded, so please bring your finest.

The care of our national commerce redounds more to the riches and prosperity of the public than any other act of government.

The realities of the modern global economy require government to play a substantial role in ensuring the national and economic security of the people.

I have a strong Lutheran background, and my parents instilled in me strong morals.