There isn’t any hell or heaven except for how we relate to our world. Hell is just resistance to life.

While we are sitting in meditation, we are simply exploring humanity and all of creation in the form of ourselves.

The meditation technique itself cultivate precision, gentleness, and the ability to let go - qualities that are innate within us.

Meditation is about seeing clearly the body that we have, the mind that we have, the domestic situation that we have, the job that we have, and the people who are in our lives.

One of the main discoveries of meditation is seeing how we continually run away from the present moment, how we avoid being here just as we are.

The path of meditation and the path of our lives altogether ha to do with curiosity, inquisitiveness.

We're here to get to know and study ourselves. The path, the way to do that, our main vehicle, is going to be meditation, and some sense of general wakefulness.

Meditation is a process of lightening up, of trusting the basic goodness of what we have and who we are, and of realizing that any wisdom that exists, exists in what we already have.

We don't have to be harsh with ourselves when we think, sitting here, that our meditation or our oryoki or the way we are in the world is in the category of worst horse.

The problem is that the desire to change is fundamentally a form of aggression toward yourself.

The first noble truth says simply that it’s part of being human to feel discomfort.

If a black cat crosses your path, it signifies that the animal is going somewhere.

If I could write a letter to my teenage self I'd probably say something like: "You ain't gonna believe what will become of you."

If I can bring joy into the world, then I'll be successful.

Death is the essential condition of life, not an evil.

There were a zillion bad jobs. That doesn't exist any more. I mean, I could wake up one afternoon with zero money and know that by the end of the day, I would have money.

Until we have a serious discussion, this problem [racism] will continue to occur.

You can't be melancholy in fashion because people don't respond to it.

The excellence of every Art is its intensity.

For as laws are necessary that good manners be preserved, so there is need of good manners that law may be maintained.

Go early to bed. Start maybe working out a little sooner. Stay patient. Stop smoking.