Business and scholarship pass away with the person, but the soul is forever like new. Fame and fortune change with the generations, but the spirit is always the same. Enlightened people surely should not exchange the lasting for the ephemeral.

Fishing is a pleasure of retirement, yet the angler has the power to let the fish live or die.

Our body is a small universe; to regulate emotions and feelings is a way of harmonization.

Valuing unusual conduct is not as good as being careful about ordinary actions.

If you do not join the polluted, then you are pure; if you reject society in search of purity, that is not purity but fanaticism.

The realms of good fortune and calamity in human life are all made of thoughts and imaginings. Therefore Buddhists say that the burning of desire for gain is itself a pit of fire, while drowning in greedy love is itself a bitter sea. The moment thoughts are pure, fierce flames become a pond; the moment you become aware, the boat has arrived on the further shore. If your thoughts vary at all, your world will immediately differ, so can we not be careful?

One of our predecessors said, "Throwing away the inexhaustible treasury of your own home, you go with your bowl from door to door, acting like a beggar"