Discipline is a difficult word for most of us. It conjures up images of somebody standing over you with a stick, telling you that you're wrong. But self-discipline is different. It's the skill of seeing through the hollow shouting of your own impulses and piercing their secret.

[M]orality is not a ritualistic obedience to a code of behavior imposed by an external authority. It is rather a healthy habit pattern that you have consciously and voluntarily chosen to impose upon yourself because you recognize its superiority to your present behavior.

Civilization changes man on the outside. Meditation softens him within, through and through.

We have to learn to be kind to ourselves. In the long run avoiding unpleasantness is a very unkind thing to do to yourself.

The process of becoming who you will be begins first with the total acceptance of who you are.

Let come what comes, and accommodate yourself to that, whatever it is. If good mental images arise, that is fine. If bad mental images arise, that is fine, too. Look on all of it as equal, and make yourself comfortable with whatever happens.

Pain is inevitable, suffering is not.