What people expect to happen is always different from what actually happens. From this comes great disappointment; this is the way the world works.

- Sutta Nipata

The source of all good, evil, weal and harm lies with actions, speech and thoughts. Did you bring your actions, speech and thoughts with you today? Or have you left them at home? This is where you must look, right here. You don't have to look very far away. Look at your actions, speech and thoughts.

- Ajahn Chah, "Living Dharma"

There is no spot, O king, where Nirvna is situate, and yet Nirvna is, and he who orders his life right will, by careful attention, realize Nirvna. Just as fire exists, and yet there is no place where fire (by itself) is stored up. But if a man rubs two sticks together the fire comes; just so, O king, Nirvna exists, though there is no spot where it is stored up. And he who orders his life aright will, by careful attention, realize Nirvna.

- Milindapanha


Subhuti asked: "Is it possible to find perfect wisdom through reflection or listening to statements or through signs or attributes, so that one can say 'This is it' or 'Here it is'?" The Buddha answered: "No, Subhuti. Perfect wisdom can't be learned or distinguished or thought about or found through the senses. This is because nothing in this world can be finally explained, it can only be experienced, and thus all things are just as they are. Perfect wisdom can never be experienced apart from all things. To see the Suchness of things, which is their empty calm being, is to see them just as they are. It is in this way that perfect wisdom and the material world are not two, they are not divided. As a result of Suchness, of calm and empty being, perfect wisdom cannot be known about intellectually. Nor can the things of the world, for they are understood only through names and ideas. Where there is no learning or finding out, no concepts or conventional words, it is in that place one can say there is perfect wisdom."

- Ashtasahasrika


The ultimate way is without difficulty; those who seek it make their own hardship. The true mind is originally pure; those who exercise it make their own defilement.

- Hui-k'ung