“Suttas are not meant to be ‘sacred scriptures’ that tell us what to believe.”

We look directly into our suffering rather than try to become happy. The happiness that arises from this approach is reliable.

Meditation is a skilful letting go: gently but with resolution.

One should read them, listen to them, think about them, contemplate them, and investigate the present reality, the present experience with them. Then, and only then, can one insightfully know the truth beyond words.

A new day is here. Yesterday is a memory. Tomorrow is unknown. Now is the knowing.

Of course we can always imagine more perfect conditions, how it should be ideally, how everyone should behave. But it is not our task to create an ideal. It’s our task to see how it is, and to learn from the world as it is. For the awakening of the heart, conditions are always good enough.

Instead of becoming the world’s expert on Buddhism, just let go, let go, let go.

We no longer expect the sensory world to satisfy us.

When we accept life as it is, we can respond appropriately to the way we’re experiencing it, rather than just reacting out of fear and aversion.

Whatever you think you are, that’s not what you are.

The empty mind – the pure mind – is not a blank, zero-land, where you’re not feeling or caring about anything.

The problem is grasping the clock. So what do I do? Let it go, lay it aside – put it down gently without any kind of aversion. Then I can pick it up again, see what time it is and lay it aside when necessary.

It’s an effulgence of the mind. It’s a brightness that is truly sensitive and accepting. It’s an ability to accept life as it is.

The goal lies away from the sensual world. It is not a rejection of the sensual world, but understanding it so well that we no longer seek it as an end in itself.

We no longer demand that sensory consciousness be anything other than an existing condition that we can use skillfully according to time and place.

The mind of an enlightened human being is flexible and adaptable.

The mind of the ignorant person is conditioned and fixed.

All of the religions – with the exception of Tibetan Buddhism, which doesn’t believe in a heaven – teach that heaven is a better place. At the end of the program, I say that heaven is a place where you are happy. All of the religions have that in common.

I haven’t got any Buddhism. I live by letting things happen.

To study Buddhism is to study ourselves. To study ourselves is to forget ourselves.

I’ve tried Buddhism, Scientology, Numerology, Transcendental Meditation, Qabbala, t’ai chi, feng shui and Deepak Chopra but I find straight gin works best.

Therefore we have to train our mind. The meditation practice in Buddhism is all about training one’s own mind.

Instead of becoming the world’s expert on Buddhism, just let go, let go, let go.

To define Buddhism without a lot of words and phrases, we can simply say, ‘Don’t cling or hold on to anything. Harmonize with actuality, with things as they are.’

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.