“Because the only thing that stays with you from the moment you’re born until the moment you die is your breath. All your friends, your family, the country you live in, all of that can change. The one thing that stays with you is your breath.”

A monk mind practices detachment. We realize that everything—from our houses to our families—is borrowed.

Find me someone who has gone to the darkest parts of their own character where they were so close to their own self-destruction and found a way to get up and out of it, and I will bow on my knees to you. You’re my teacher.

The more we define ourselves in relation to the people around us, the more lost we are.

If you follow your bliss, he said, doors will open for you that wouldn’t have opened for anyone else

We say things to ourselves that we would never say to people we love

Too often we love people who don’t love us, but we fail to return the love of others who do.

What’s on your news feed is feeding your mind.

Everyone has a story, and sometimes our egos choose to ignore that. Don’t take everything personally—it is usually not about you.

So people who come to this place, stay here for a while, and then continue their journey. Sounds like a hotel to me.

Most of our communication is nonverbal.

It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection.

Every night when I’m falling asleep, I say to myself, I am relaxed, energized, and focused. I am calm, enthusiastic, and productive.

Monks understand that routine frees your mind, but the biggest threat to that freedom is monotony. People complain about their poor memories, but I’ve heard it said that we don’t have a retention problem, we have an attention problem.

Never trust a spiritual leader who cannot dance.

Actually, the greatest detachment is being close to everything and not letting it consume and own you. That’s real strength.

Sometimes we can trace our fears through the actions we take, and sometimes it’s the actions we’re reluctant to take

Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have.

To live is to be slowly born.

I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest.

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its fragrance on the desert air.

Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.

Be alone, that is the secret of invention; be alone, that is when ideas are born.

I’m single because I was born that way.

You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?