“We need to develop meditation so that the understanding arises clearly within oneself. It is not the case that merely by listening to another’s explanation our defilements will disappear.”

There are people who are born and die and never once are aware of their breath going in and out of their body. That’s how far away they live from themselves

We will come to understand that everything in the world is our teacher.

When we gain some understanding we need to chew on it again so that we see it for ourselves with certainty: paccattam.

Happiness and suffering do not depend on being poor or rich, they depend on having the right or wrong understanding in our mind.

Steady practice is keeping mindful in every posture, whether sitting, walking, standing or lying down.

To give up doing evil is more important than making merit.

The ladle is in the soup pot every day, but it doesn’t know the taste of the soup. You must reflect and meditate.

These days people don’t search for the Truth. People study simply in order to find knowledge necessary to make a living.

Isn’t it wonderful how the sky can take that dirty water and change it into pure, clean water? Your mind can do the same with your defilements if you let it.

People go through life blindly, ignoring death like revellers at a party feasting on fine foods. They ignore that later they will have to go to the toilet, so they do not bother to find out where there is one.

If you let go completely you will have complete peace.

No. It’s simply a thorn. It doesn’t give suffering to anybody. If we step on it, we suffer immediately.

Letting go a little brings a little peace. Letting go a lot brings a lot of peace. Letting go completely brings complete peace.

If it isn’t good, let it die. If it doesn’t die, make it good.

If you let go a lot you will have a lot of happiness. If you let go completely you will be free.

Whatever he taught, we should practise it. Only bowing to him is not enough. We need to renounce, give up, stop, so that we may see the Buddha.

To go beyond the self, beyond even its most intimate union with God, and this is where we enter yet another new life- a life best categorized, perhaps, as a life without a self.

It takes a great deal of courage to follow another person’s lead.

I like being outdoors. I like to go cavorting in the nude in the forests. It is just another world. To take sunbaths in the nude.

The mirror sees the man as beautiful, the mirror loves the man; another mirror sees the man as frightful and hates him; and it is always the same being who produces the impressions.

What a great idea! Maybe, I could do the same thing with my music. Create a place where a kid off the street could walk in one door, an unknown, go through a process, and come out another door, a star.

Nothing can prevent us from another day and night, and the myth of perpetual flight.

When you name yourself, you always name another.

I hate to compare anything, especially while I’m promoting. I feel that’s another disrespect, but ‘Ocean’s 13’ is the best movie I’ve ever done in my life. No question.