If your mind is happy, then you are happy anywhere you go. When wisdom awakens within you, you will see Truth wherever you look. Truth us all there is. It’s like when you’ve learned how to read – you can then read anywhere you go.

There’s only one book worth reading: the mind.

We don’t meditate to see heaven, but to end suffering.

Love and hate are both suffering, because of desire. Wanting is suffering, wanting not to have is suffering. Even if you get what you want, it’s still suffering because once you’ve got it, you then live in the fear of losing it. How are you going to live happily with fear?

Mental activity is like a deadly poisonous cobra. If we don’t interfere with a cobra, how poisonous it may be, it simply goes its own away.

Know and watch your heart. It’s pure but emotions come to colour it. So let your mind be like a tightly woven net to catch emotions and feelings that come, and investigate them before you react.

Of course, there are dozens of meditation techniques, but it all comes down to this – just let it all be.

A madman and an arahant both smile, but the arahant knows why while the madman doesn’t.

Anyone can build a house of wood and bricks, but the Buddha taught us that sort of home is not our real home. It’s a home in the world and it follows the ways of the world. Our real home is inner peace.

When we practice only when we’re feeling good, how are we going to get anywhere like that?