“When coming out of sitting, don’t think that you’re coming out of meditation, but that you are only changing postures.”

Where does peace arise? Peace arises whenever we let something go.

A madman and an arahant both smile, but the arahant knows why while the madman doesn’t.

We can always find time to breathe. In the same way, if we see the importance of meditation practice we will find the time to practice.

Truth is all there is. It’s like when you learned how to read, you can then read anywhere you go.

The Dhamma has to be found by looking into your own heart and seeing that which is true and that which is not, that which is balanced and that which is not balanced.

We do it, not with desire, but with letting go. If you want anything, you wont find it.

Do not be in a hurry or try to push your practice. If you become peaceful, then accept it,; if you don’t become peaceful, then accept that also.

Better to begin practice without delay. I am like a good friend inviting you to go somewhere. Do not hesitate, just get going. You won’t regret it.

Once you understand non-self, then the burden of life is gone. You’ll be at peace with the world. When we see beyond self, we no longer cling to happiness and we can truly be happy.

When you sit, let it be. What you walk, let it be. Grasp at nothing. Resist nothing.

Wisdom is in yourself, just like a sweet ripe mango is already in a young green one.

Learn to see that it is not things that bother us, that we go out to bother them.

The one who recognizes the uncertainty of phenomena is the Dharma within you.

Do not try to become anything. Do not make yourself into anything. Do not be a meditator. Do not become enlightened.

I know this glass is already broken, so I enjoy it – incredibly.

To observe and watch one’s own mind is something really interesting. The untrained mind will run and follow its old habit patterns. Because it has not been trained and taught, it will get lost in all kinds of stories and issues.

I think of art as coming from daily life, daily experience. I think it’s very important not to have it become work for some kind of elite circle.

The Taliban had become deeply unpopular and were actually discarded by the Pashtun population almost as quickly as they were in the north. I don’t see the Taliban coming back in any way.

If this be the Messiah, then I do not wish to see his coming

When people are coming to Krakow and we show them how and where we practice, they are like, ‘Seriously?

Even if I wear jeans, I still wear a blazer and jewelry. I think there is something nice about coming to work and dressing nicely.

I keep coming back to you in my head, but you couldn’t know that, and I have no carbons.

And when they don’t get what they want, say, “Okay, sweetheart, yours is coming. Let’s help you get it.” Be there 100% for them.

Increasingly I think of poetry as a theatre of voices, not as coming from a single “I” or from any one position. I want to imagine voices different from my own.