We live life in the marketplace and then we go off to the cave or to the meditation mat to replenish ourselves.

I don't think too much about the future. Not because I'm hiding my head in the sand but because I figured out that whatever the future was going to be, the thing I had to do was to quiet my mind and open my heart and do what I could to end suffering.

So you work on yourself as a gift to other human beings. Then you use every situation you have with other human beings as a vehicle to work on yourself by seeing where you get stuck-where you push, where you grab, where you judge, where you do all the stuff.

Real happiness lies in that which never comes nor goes, but simply is.

In most of our human relationships, we spend much of our time reassuring one another that our costumes of identity are on straight.

If you want to see how enlightened you are, go spend a week with your family.

My life is a creative act--like a painting, or a concerto.