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

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

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.

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.

The quieting of our mind is a political act.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

The most important relationship is the mind's relationship with itself. In other words, the ultimate - and, really, the only - relationship you have is the relationship with your own thoughts.

Until the mind is open, the heart stays closed. The open mind is the key to the open heart.

Every mind deserves to be free. When the mind is free, that's the end of suffering.

The moment it begins to question itself, the mind becomes so clear that it starts working with itself rather than with the body's identification.

A lover of what is looks forward to everything: life, death, disease, loss, earthquakes, bombs, anything the mind might be tempted to call 'bad.' Life will bring us everything we need, to show us what we haven't undone yet. Nothing outside ourselves can make us suffer. Except for our unquestioned thoughts, every place is paradise.

To me, health is a balanced mind. A balanced mind knows how to get enough rest, how to eat properly, how to exercise. I have come out as just a balanced human being, and I don't know anything finer than that.

Happiness is a clear mind. A clear and sane mind knows how to live, how to work, what emails to send, what phone calls to make, and what to do do to create what it wants without fear.

If you want to clean up the environment, start with your mind. It starts there!

The nature of mind is that it loves everything once it loves itself, just as it opposes everything when it opposes itself.

There's no way that a clear mind can live an unhappy life.