Health is the first benefit. Content is the first fortune. Friendliness is the first kindness. Nirvana is the first happiness.

Yet the Teaching is simple. Do what is right. Be pure. At the end of the way is freedom.

In a controversy the instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth, and have begun striving for ourselves. This is a helpful pointer for our everyday presence-practice. Can you catch yourself angrily defending your point of view or attacking the other person's? There's the ego.

Life can only take place in the present moment. If we lose the present moment, we lose life.

I do not perceive even one other thing, O monks, that when undeveloped and uncultivated entails such great suffering as the mind. The mind when undeveloped and uncultivated entails great suffering.

In our interactions with others, gentleness, kindness, respectare the source of harmony

Bring your mind to noble silence. Unify your mind in noble silence. Concentrate your mind in noble silence... Enter into rapture and pleasure born of silence derived of concentration and awareness that is free from thought and fabrication.