“Proper effort is not the effort to make something particular happen. It is the effort to be aware and awake each moment, the effort to overcome laziness and merit, the effort to make each activity of our day meditation.”

We don’t meditate to see heaven, but to end suffering.

If you haven’t wept deeply, you haven’t begun to meditate.

We have limited time in our life, therefore we should try to teach ourselves, not to teach others.

Investigate yourself to find the truth – inside, not outside. Knowing yourself is most important.

Why do we have time to breathe? Because we see the importance of the breath.

If suffering arises you must contemplate right there, you don’t have to run away.

A woman wanted to know how to deal with anger. I asked when anger arose whose anger it was. She said it was hers.

The Dharma Path is to keep walking forward. But the true Dharma has no going forward, no going backward, and no standing still.

Don’t fall for it. Whenever the mind is happy or sad, don’t fall for it. Its all a deception.

The forms of the world have their place, but in another way, there is nothing there. To be free, we need to respect both of these truths.

All religions are like different cars all moving in the same direction. People who don’t see it have no light in their hearts.

Mental activity is like a deadly poisonous cobra. If we don’t interfere with a cobra, how poisonous it may be, it simply goes its own away.

If you see certainty in that which is uncertain, you are bound to suffer

At some point your heart will tell itself what to do.

To the birds, the fruit may be sweet or sour or whatever. The birds say sweet or they say sour, but from the tree’s point of view, this is just the chattering of birds.

Some people are afraid of generosity. They feel they will be taken advantage of or oppressed.

And these are universal relational matters, not necessarily particular to any country.

It gives him layers and dimensions. He’s a well rounded character and it’s great.

This is the case with thousands: they appear desirous of knowing the truth, but have not patience to wait in a proper way to receive an answer to their question.

When you put off a task, you buy yourself time to engage in divergent thinking rather than foreclosing on one particular idea.

Remember that the word of God is not sent to particular persons, as if by name; and do not think you have no part in it, because you are not named there.

I like people and I like hearing their stories. The way that they deliver them is always very particular and I think that their accents are integral to that.

Millennials, in particular, consider themselves to be spiritual, but they’re not necessarily going to anybody’s church.

That song [ “Proud of your boy” ] in particular, I sing towards the beginning of the show [Aladdin], and what it does is show his wants and needs at the beginning and what’s motivating him and carry it throughout the show.