“We can’t stop our parents from dying, but we use the fear to remind us to spend more time with them.”

Because the only thing that stays with you from the moment you’re born until the moment you die is your breath. All your friends, your family, the country you live in, all of that can change. The one thing that stays with you is your breath.

The more we define ourselves in relation to the people around us, the more lost we are.

If you follow your bliss, he said, doors will open for you that wouldn’t have opened for anyone else

We say things to ourselves that we would never say to people we love

Too often we love people who don’t love us, but we fail to return the love of others who do.

What’s on your news feed is feeding your mind.

Everyone has a story, and sometimes our egos choose to ignore that. Don’t take everything personally—it is usually not about you.

So people who come to this place, stay here for a while, and then continue their journey. Sounds like a hotel to me.

Most of our communication is nonverbal.

It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection.

Every night when I’m falling asleep, I say to myself, I am relaxed, energized, and focused. I am calm, enthusiastic, and productive.

Monks understand that routine frees your mind, but the biggest threat to that freedom is monotony. People complain about their poor memories, but I’ve heard it said that we don’t have a retention problem, we have an attention problem.

Never trust a spiritual leader who cannot dance.

Actually, the greatest detachment is being close to everything and not letting it consume and own you. That’s real strength.

Sometimes we can trace our fears through the actions we take, and sometimes it’s the actions we’re reluctant to take

Cancers of the Mind: Comparing, Complaining, Criticizing.

To fear death, gentlemen, is no other than to think oneself wise when one is not, to think one knows what one does not know.

The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die.

Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there’s a difference for me, you know. Because in that other room I shall be able to see.

I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death.

We should keep the dead before our eyes, and honor them as though still living.

Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.

I need silence, and to be alone and to go out, and to save one hour to consider what has happened to my world, what death has done to my world.

So, have a little fun. Soon enough you’ll be dead and burning in Hell with the rest of your family.