“The problem is grasping the clock. So what do I do? Let it go, lay it aside – put it down gently without any kind of aversion. Then I can pick it up again, see what time it is and lay it aside when necessary.”

We look directly into our suffering rather than try to become happy. The happiness that arises from this approach is reliable.

Meditation is a skilful letting go: gently but with resolution.

One should read them, listen to them, think about them, contemplate them, and investigate the present reality, the present experience with them. Then, and only then, can one insightfully know the truth beyond words.

A new day is here. Yesterday is a memory. Tomorrow is unknown. Now is the knowing.

Of course we can always imagine more perfect conditions, how it should be ideally, how everyone should behave. But it is not our task to create an ideal. It’s our task to see how it is, and to learn from the world as it is. For the awakening of the heart, conditions are always good enough.

Suttas are not meant to be ‘sacred scriptures’ that tell us what to believe.

Instead of becoming the world’s expert on Buddhism, just let go, let go, let go.

We no longer expect the sensory world to satisfy us.

When we accept life as it is, we can respond appropriately to the way we’re experiencing it, rather than just reacting out of fear and aversion.

Whatever you think you are, that’s not what you are.

The empty mind – the pure mind – is not a blank, zero-land, where you’re not feeling or caring about anything.

It’s an effulgence of the mind. It’s a brightness that is truly sensitive and accepting. It’s an ability to accept life as it is.

The goal lies away from the sensual world. It is not a rejection of the sensual world, but understanding it so well that we no longer seek it as an end in itself.

We no longer demand that sensory consciousness be anything other than an existing condition that we can use skillfully according to time and place.

The mind of an enlightened human being is flexible and adaptable.

The mind of the ignorant person is conditioned and fixed.

Only God is love, and for this love to be fully realized self must step aside. And not only do we not need a self to love God, but for the same reason we do not need a mind to know him, for that in us which knows God, is God.

You can only do so many things great, and you should cast aside everything else.

Maybe Rachel was right all along. Maybe the past is past, history is history, and you just push it aside and look for the future.

Hell is yourself and the only redemption is when a person puts himself aside to feel deeply for another person.

It’s easier for the former masters to put aside the masks that hid their humanity than for the former slaves to recognise the faces underneath. Or to trust that this is not a new mask these are wearing.

The Spurs couldn’t put everything aside and just play the damn game.

Leave aside your regrets of the past and anxieties of the future And focus intelligently on the present. This is the best way of ensuring a positive future.

We feel such a strong connection to nature. But the relationship between nature and us is one-sided. There is no reciprocity. There is no mind on the other side of the wall.