Enlightenment is the understanding that this is all, that this is perfect, that this is it. Enlightenment is not an achievement, it is an understanding that there is nothing to achieve, nowhere to go.

Life should be a continual celebration, a festival of lights the whole year round. Only then can you grow up, can you blossom.

See what your misery is, what desires are causing it, and why you are clinging to those desires. And it is not for the first time that you are clinging to those desires; this has been the pattern of your whole life and you have not arrived anywhere. You go on in circles, you never come to any real growth. You remain childish, stupid. And you are born with the intelligence that can make you a buddha, but it is lost in unnecessary things.

When you don't cling to anything, there is nowhere to go - all boats have been abandoned, you cannot go anywhere; all paths have been dropped, you cannot go anywhere; all dreams and desires have disappeared, there is no way to move. Relaxation happens of its own accord. Just think of the word relax. Be, settle, you have come home.

The whole zen attitude is to bring to your notice the fact that there is no effort to be made. The zen attitude is that of effortlessness.

Life is absolutely balanced between the positive and the negative. Now it is your choice which side you want to be - in heaven or in hell.

In the West, marriage is collapsing because it is based on love. And a marriage that is based on love is bound to fail. There is a reason for this: whenever two persons fall in love, both of them present what is beautiful in themselves to the other and hide the ugly. When you fall in love, whether you are a man or a woman, you show your most beautiful face to the other - but it is not your reality, it is not your totality.