“Why do we suffer? Because we stepped on it. So the suffering comes from us.”

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 listen to everything from Ravel to the Bee Gees.

It will soon be 25 years from the date of publication of my first research work. That the scientific aspirations kindled by that early work did not suffer extinction has been due entirely to the opportunities provided for me by the great city of Calcutta.

To cultivate an English accent is already a departure away from what you are.

My goals are so high that I don’t have time to relax in any way, shape or form.

In the first period religious life appears as a form of discipline which the individual or a whole people must accept as an unconditional command without any rational understanding of the ultimate meaning and purpose of that command.

I get that mainly from novels and that style of writing or movies where there’s multiple characters who carry the storyline.

My pitching philosophy is simple – keep the ball way from the bat.

We all tend to be in the same circles – people like my Wu-Tang brothers, or Black Thought from The Roots.