But forgiveness is the act of not putting anyone out of your heart, even those who are acting out of deep ignorance or out of confusion and pain.

Finding a way to extend forgiveness to ourselves is one of our most essential tasks. Just as others have been caught in suffering, so have we. If we look honestly at our life, we can see the sorrows and pain that have led to our own wrongdoing. In this we can finally extend forgiveness to ourselves; we can hold the pain we have caused in compassion. Without such mercy, we will live our own life in exile.

Most people discover that when hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with their own pain.

The awakened heart and mind can be experienced as clarity itself, pure knowing.

Skill in concentrating and steadying the mind is the basis for all types of meditation.

Breathing meditation can quiet the mind, open the body, and develop a great power of concentration.

As long as you are trying to be something other than what you actually are, your mind wears itself out. But if you say, 'This is what I am, it is a fact that I am going to investigate and understand,' then you can go beyond.

The unawakened mind tends to make war against the way things are.

There are many good forms of meditation practice. A good meditation practice is any one that develops awareness or mindfulness of our body and our sense, of our mind and heart.

Train your mind the same way you’d train a puppy: Be patient, be consistent, and have some fun along the way.

Though outer events may be difficult, the key to our happiness is how our mind responds to them.

The quieting of our mind is a political act.

In the West, there's a myth that freedom means free expression-that to follow all desires wherever they take one is true freedom. In fact, as one serves the mind, one sees that following desires, attractions, and repulsions is not at all freedom, but is a kind of bondage. A mind filled with desires and grasping inevitably entails great suffering. Freedom is not to be gained through the ability to perform certain external actions. True freedom is an inward state of being. Once it is attained, no situation in the world can bind one or limit one's freedom.

Every facet, every department of your mind, is to be programmed by you. And unless you assume your rightful responsibility, and begin to program your own mind, the world will program it for you.

Buddhist teachings are not a religion, they are a science of mind.

The goal of practice is always to keep our beginner's mind.

The purpose of spiritual life is not to create some special state of mind. A state of mind is always temporary. The purpose is to work directly with the most primary elements of our body and our mind, to see the ways we get trapped by our fears, desires, and anger, to learn directly our capacity for freedom.

It is hard to imagine a world without forgiveness. Without forgiveness life would be unbearable. Without forgiveness our lives are chained, forced to carry the sufferings of the past and repeat them with no release.

As we follow a genuine path of practice, our sufferings may seem to increase because we no longer hide from them or from ourselves. When we do not follow the old habits of fantasy and escape, we are left facing the actual problems and contradictions of our life.

We must especially learn the art of directing mindfulness into the closed areas of our life.

We can easily become loyal to our suffering … but it's not the end of the path.

We must look at our life without sentimentality, exaggeration or idealism. Does what we are choosing reflect what we most deeply value?

When we feel anger toward someone, we can consider that they are a being just like us, who has faced much suffering in life.

We each need to make our lion's roar - to persevere with unshakable courage when faced with all manner of doubts and sorrows and fears - to declare our right to awaken.

Your happiness and suffering depend on your actions and not on my wishes for you.

With growing awareness, you can see where you're caught or where you suffer or where you create suffering. You can then turn toward the difficulties that arise in your life with compassion, bow, and say, these too are part of human incarnation.

We can always begin again.

Without being aware of it, you take many things as being your identity: your body, your race, your beliefs, your thoughts.

The person who betrayed you is sunning themselves on a beach in Hawaii and you're knotted up in hatred. Who is suffering?

Peace requires us to surrender our illusions of control. We can love and care for others but we cannot possess our children, lovers, family, or friends. We can assist them, pray for them, and wish them well, yet in the end their happiness and suffering depend on their thoughts and actions, not on our wishes.

Finding a way to extend forgiveness to ourselves is one of our most essential tasks. Just as others have been caught in suffering, so have we. If we look honestly at our life, we can see the sorrows and pain that have led to our own wrongdoing. In this we can finally extend forgiveness to ourselves; we can hold the pain we have caused in compassion. Without such mercy, we will live our own life in exile.

No one knows how this world came into being. It is a creation of consciousness itself. It's extraordinary, a mystery.

How did we get into this funny-looking body that has a hole at one end in which we regularly stuff dead plants and animals? It's bizarre that we got here, incarnated into this world with these bodies.

Yes, there are troubles in the world. There's war and hatred, there's sickness and difficulty. And there is also an undying spirit, an inviolable consciousness that is born in each of us. It is who we are, and it's everything and it's nothing.

In this world there are two great sources of strength. One rests with those who are not afraid to kill. The other rests with those who are not afraid to love.

Every individual in the world has a unique contribution.

In this there is no judgment and no blame, for we seek not to perfect the world but to perfect our love for what is on this earth.

Tending to ourselves, we tend the world. Tending the world, we tend ourselves.

Only in the reality of the present can we love, can we awaken, can we find peace and understanding and connection with ourselves and the world.

Every facet, every department of your mind, is to be programmed by you. And unless you assume your rightful responsibility, and begin to program your own mind, the world will program it for you.

The work of your heart, the work of taking time, to listen, to help, is also your gift to the whole of the world

Live in joy, luminosity, and peace even among the troubles of the world. Remember who you are.

Meet this transient world with neither grasping nor fear, trust the unfolding of life, and you will attain true serenity.

When we get too caught up in the busyness of the world, we lose connection with one another - and ourselves.

In sitting on the meditation cushion and assuming the meditation posture, we connect ourselves with the present moment in this body and on this earth.

Skill in concentrating and steadying the mind is the basis for all types of meditation.

Breathing meditation can quiet the mind, open the body, and develop a great power of concentration.

Meditation practice is neither holding on nor avoiding; it is a settling back into the moment, opening to what is there.

To understand ourselves and our life is the point of insight meditation: to understand and to be free.

In Buddhist practice, the outward and inward aspects of taking the one seat meet on our meditation cushion.