We owe a huge debt to Galileo for emancipating us all from the stupid belief in an Earth-centered or man-centered (let alone God-centered) system. He quite literally taught us our place and allowed us to go on to make extraordinary advances in knowledge.

It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.

How far to heaven? Just open your eyes and look. You are in heaven.

True enlightenment is nothing but the nature of one's own self being fully realized.

This teaching of the stages of the path to enlightenment came to Tibet from India. Buddhism did not come to Tibet until the eighth century.

To be enlightened is simply to be absolutely, unconditionally intimate with this moment. No more. No less.

Great doubt will eventually lead to great awakening.

Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water. The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken. Although its light is wide and great, The moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide. The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in one dewdrop on the grass.

How can one become enlightened? One can, because one is enlightened - one just has to recognize the fact.

Enlightenment is the understanding that this is all, that this is perfect, that this is it. Enlightenment is not an achievement, it is an understanding that there is nothing to achieve, nowhere to go.

Zen is the only religion in the world that teaches sudden enlightenment. It says that enlightenment takes no time, it can happen in a single, split second.

I am convinced that life in a physical body is meant to be an ecstatic experience.

Enlightenment must come little by little - otherwise it would overwhelm.

Enlightenment will be now the beginning, not the end. Beginning of a non-ending process in all dimensions of richness.

Nothing is more honorable than enlightenment, nothing is more beautiful than virtue.

Up to now, nobody has said, that there is anything beyond enlightenment. That's why I say, I am a milestone.

Unity is divinity; purity is enlightenment.

Do not think you will necessarily be aware of your own enlightenment.

Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water.

After enlightenment, the laundry

Because not even the least Dharma is there found or got at. Therefore is it called 'utmost, right and perfect enlightenment'. Self-identical is that Dharma and nothing is therein at variance. Therefore is it called 'utmost, right and perfect enlighten'

Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is enlightenment.

Enlightenment is not imagining figures of light but making the darkness conscious.

Those who really seek the path to Enlightenment dictate terms to their mind. Then they proceed with strong determination.

To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one's family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one's own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him

The greatest gift is to give people your enlightenment, to share it. It has to be the greatest.

Knowing others is wisdom; Knowing the self is enlightenment; Mastering others requires force; Mastering the self needs strength.

If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.

Man is lost and is wandering in a jungle where real values have no meaning. Real values can have meaning to man only when he steps on to the spiritual path, a path where negative emotions have no use.

Great doubt will eventually lead to great awakening.

It all depends on how we look at things, and not how they are in themselves.

We feel and know that we are eternal.

I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.

Live in balance between the head and the heart by filling your feelings with wisdom and your decisions with love.

You are a Buddha. But remember you are not a Buddha in any special sense. Everybody is - So don't take it in an egoistic sense that "I" am a Buddha. Don't make it ambitious, don't go on an ambition trip. All is Buddha. Life is Buddha, being is Buddha-hood, existence is Buddha-hood.

All beings are from the very beginning Buddhas. It is like water and ice: Apart from water, no ice, outside living beings, no Buddhas. Not knowing it is near they seek it afar, what a pity!

All the Buddhas of all the ages have been telling you a very simple fact: Be -- don't try to become. Within these two words, be and becoming, your whole life is contained. Being is enlightenment, becoming is ignorance.

Ecstasy is our very nature; not to be ecstatic is simply unnecessary. To be ecstatic is natural, spontaneous. It needs no effort to be ecstatic, it needs great effort to be miserable. That's why you look to tired, because misery is really hard work; to maintain it is really difficult, because you are doing something against nature.

If I could define enlightenment briefly I would say it is the quiet acceptance of what is.

The expression of enlightenment whether it is premodern enlightenment or postmodern enlightenment, traditional enlightenment or evolutionary enlightenment is the expression of that consciousness that is always inherently free from time. In order for your own self, at the level of consciousness, to demonstrate freedom from time and history in a dynamic and significant way, you need to do whatever it takes to accept responsibility for anything and everything that has happened to you as an evolving self in time that could prevent that which transcends time from awakening within you.

Do not think you will necessarily be aware of your own enlightenment.

When you open up to the ultimate, immediately it pours into you. You are no longer an ordinary human being - you have transcended. Your insight has become the insight of the whole existence. Now you are no longer separate - you have found your roots. Otherwise, ordinarily, everybody is moving without roots, not knowing from where their heart goes on receiving energy, not knowing who goes on breathing in them, not knowing the life juice that is running inside them. It is not the body, it is not the mind - it is something transcendental to all duality, that is called bhagavat - the bhagavat in the ten directions .... Your inner being, when it opens, first experiences two directions: the height, the depth. And then slowly, slowly, as this becomes your established situation, you start looking around, spreading into all other eight directions. And once you have attained to the point where your height and your depth meet, then you can look around to the very circumference of the universe. Then your consciousness starts unfolding in all ten directions, but the road has been one.

When you are alone you are not alone, you are simply lonely - and there is a tremendous difference between loneliness and aloneness. When you are lonely you are thinking of the other, you are missing the other. Loneliness is a negative state. You are feeling that it would have been better if the other were there - your friend, your wife, your mother, your beloved, your husband. It would have been good if the other were there, but the other is not. Loneliness is absence of the other. Aloneness is the presence of oneself. Aloneness is very positive. It is a presence, overflowing presence. You are so full of presence that you can fill the whole universe with your presence and there is no need for anybody.

When you open up to the ultimate, immediately it pours into you. You are no longer an ordinary human being - you have transcended. Your insight has become the insight of the whole existence. Now you are no longer separate - you have found your roots. Otherwise, ordinarily, everybody is moving without roots, not knowing from where their heart goes on receiving energy, not knowing who goes on breathing in them, not knowing the life juice that is running inside them. It is not the body, it is not the mind - it is something transcendental to all duality, that is called bhagavat - the bhagavat in the ten directions .... Your inner being, when it opens, first experiences two directions: the height, the depth. And then slowly, slowly, as this becomes your established situation, you start looking around, spreading into all other eight directions. And once you have attained to the point where your height and your depth meet, then you can look around to the very circumference of the universe. Then your consciousness starts unfolding in all ten directions, but the road has been one.