“If you want to understand suffering you must look into the situation at hand.”

The heart of the path is quite easy.

With even a little intuitive wisdom we will be able to see clearly the ways of the world.

I am like a tree in a forest. Birds come to the tree, they sit on its branches and eat its fruits.

When we see beyond self, we no longer cling to happiness. And when we stop clinging, we can begin to be happy.

When suffering arises, where does it arise from? The cause is wrong view, the fruit of that being suffering. If it was right view it wouldn’t cause suffering.

You should know both the universal and the personal, the realm of forms and the freedom to not cling to them.

Dharma is in your mind, not in the forest. Don’t believe others, just listen to your mind. You don’t have to go anywhere else.

Holding on to anger as a personal possession will cause suffering. If anger really belonged to us, it would have to obey us. If it doesn’t obey us, that means it’s only a deception.

The Dhamma has to sink deeply into the mind so that whatever we do, the mind has always goodness within it. All the ways of making merit are aiming at this. Goodness lies in the right view that is established in the mind.

You say that you are too busy to meditate. Do you have time to breathe? Meditation is your breath. Why do you have time to breathe but not to meditate?

To know existence as this flow, empty of lasting pleasure, void of self, is to find that which is stable and free of suffering, to find true peace in the world.

The master held up a glass and said: Someone gave me this glass; It holds my water admirably and it glistens in the sunlight.

When we sit in meditation and hear a sound, we think, ‘Oh, that sound’s bothering me.’ If we see it like this, we suffer. But if we investigate a little deeper,

Time is our present breath.

When the heart truly understands, it lets go of everything.

When we conquer ourselves, then everything will be conquered: oneself, others, and all the sense objects as well, coming in by way of the eyes, ears, nose, tongue and body — it will all get conquered like this.

I’m used to being in the minority. I’m a left-handed, gay Jew. I’ve never felt, automatically, a member of any majority.

I stretched out my hand towards the little bookshelf where I kept cookery and devotional books, the most comfortable bedside reading.

My most noticeable physical trait is, hands down, my hair. It’s big, unruly and curly, and you can spot it from a mile away… Literally.

[E]mpathy – not squishy self-serving conflict avoidance – is the hand-maiden, not the enemy, of reason and intellectual inquiry.

If men of eminence are exposed to censure on one hand, they are as much liable to flattery on the other. If they receive reproaches which are not due to them, they likewise receive praises which they do not deserve.

No one should be incarcerated for debt or squeezed for money they have no chance of getting their hands on.

State ownership! It leads only to absurd and monstrous conclusions; state ownership means state monopoly, concentrated in the hands of one party and its adherents, and that state brings only ruin and bankruptcy to all.

Good work and joyous play go hand in hand. When play stops, old age begins. Play keeps you from taking life too seriously.