“You do not suffer because things are impermanent. You suffer because things are impermanent and you think they are permanent.”

The source of a true smile is an awakened mind. Smiling helps you approach the day with gentleness and understanding.

There is no way to happiness – happiness is the way.

Seek peace. When you have peace within, real peace with others will be possible.

Human beings are not our enemy. Our enemy is not the other person. Our enemy is the violence, ignorance, and injustice in us and in the other person.

The most precious gift we can offer anyone is our attention. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers.

Life is a miracle, and being aware of simply this can already make us very happy.

The past is gone, the future is not yet here, and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment, we cannot be in touch with life.

In true dialogue, both sides are willing to change.

If you love someone but rarely make yourself available to him or her, that is not true love.

The desire to be a free person is very worthwhile. To be free means you are no longer the victim of fear, anger, craving, or suspicion.

At any moment, you have a choice, that either leads you closer to your spirit or further away from it.

Nonviolent action, born of the awareness of suffering and nurtured by love, is the most effective way to confront adversity.

If you think that peace and happiness are somewhere else and you run after them, you will never arrive.

A true partner or friend is one who encourages you to look deep inside yourself for the beauty and love you’ve been seeking.

We have more possibilities available in each moment than we realize.

Enlightenment is always there. Small enlightenment will bring great enlightenment. If you breathe in and are aware that you are alive – that you can touch the miracle of being alive – then that is a kind of enlightenment.

I broke something and realized I should break something once a week to remind me how fragile life is.

Your smile brightens the lives of all who see it. To someone who has seen a dozen people frown, scowl or turn their faces away, your smile is like the sun breaking through the clouds.

The whole problem of life, then, is this: how to break out of one’s own loneliness, how to communicate with others.

Open your mind, allow your feelings to be expressed, to be pushed out, and your heart will neither break nor burst, but be a free-flowing channel of the life energy in your soul.

Break me. Until there’s nothing left and I’ll be free.

And I’ll hug your words like they’re the last things I’ll ever hold.

Lord, please transform this worldly brokenness into actions that will praise you.

Nothing has stolen more dreams, dashed more hopes, broken up more families, and messed up more people psychologically than our propensity to disregard God’s commands regarding sexual purity.