Feelings, whether of compassion or irritation, should be welcomed, recognized, and treated on an absolutely equal basis; because both are ourselves. The tangerine I am eating is me. The mustard greens I am planting are me. I plant with all my heart and mind. I clean this teapot with the kind of attention I would have were I giving the baby Buddha or Jesus a bath. Nothing should be treated more carefully than anything else. In mindfulness, compassion, irritation, mustard green plant, and teapot are all sacred.

If you have a friend who suffers, you have to help him.«My dear friend, you are on safe ground. Everything is okay now. Why do you continue to suffer? Don't go back to the past. It's only a ghost; it's unreal». And whenever we recognize that these are only movies and pictures, not reality, we are free. That is the practice of mindfulness.

I do not watch television. But I'm in touch with the world. If anything really important happens, someone will tell me.

The secret of Buddhism is to remove all ideas, all concepts, in order for the truth to have a chance to penetrate, to reveal itself.

There are some people who eat an orange but don't really eat it. They eat their sorrow, fear, anger, past, and future.

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

What happens in the present moment? In the present moment, you are producing thought, speech, and action. And they continue in the world.