A good practice is to ask yourself very sincerely, 'Why was I born?' Ask yourself this question in the morning, in the afternoon, and at night…every day.
Dharma is in your mind, not in the forest. Don't believe others, just listen to your mind. You don't have to go anywhere else. Wisdom is in yourself, just like a sweet ripe mango is already in a young green one.
There are two kinds of suffering. There is the suffering you run away from, which follows you everywhere. And there is the suffering you face directly, and so become free.
If we want to really see the Buddha, we should observe his virtuous qualities. Whatever he taught, we should practise it. Only bowing to him is not enough. We need to renounce, give up, stop, so that we may see the Buddha.
Remember you dont meditate to get anything, but to get rid of things. We do it, not with desire, but with letting go. If you want anything, you wont find it.
When we conquer ourselves, then everything will be conquered: oneself, others, and all the sense objects as well, coming in by way of the eyes, ears, nose, tongue and body -- it will all get conquered like this.
When we sit in meditation and hear a sound, we think, 'Oh, that sound's bothering me.' If we see it like this, we suffer. But if we investigate a little deeper, we see that the sound is simply sound. If we understand like this, then there's nothing more to it. We leave it be. The sound is just sound, why should you go and grab it? You see that actually it was you who went out and disturbed the sound.
Proper effort is not the effort to make something particular happen. It is the effort to be aware and awake each moment, the effort to overcome laziness and merit, the effort to make each activity of our day meditation.
There are people who are born and die and never once are aware of their breath going in and out of their body. That's how far away they live from themselves
You should know both the universal and the personal, the realm of forms and the freedom to not cling to them. The forms of the world have their place, but in another way, there is nothing there. To be free, we need to respect both of these truths.
If you let go a little you will have a little happiness. If you let go a lot you will have a lot of happiness. If you let go completely you will be free.
We say that to 'give up all evil and to develop the good' is the heart of the Buddha's teaching. If we only make merit but have not stopped doing bad things, then we will never have a day of completion. It is like an overturned bowl which is left outside in the rain. Even if the water is falling right on it, it only touches the outside and not the inside. In this way the bowl will never get full.
Peace is within oneself to be found in the same place as agitation and suffering. It is not found in a forest or on a hilltop, nor is it given by a teacher. Where you experience suffering, you can also find freedom from suffering. Trying to run away from suffering is actually to run toward it.