1. Don’t Be a Jerk 2. When Necessary, Hide the Zen 3. Meditate 4. The Price of Security Is Insecurity—Until It’s Not Useful 5. Equanimity Is Not the Enemy of Creativity 6. Don’t Force It 7. Humility Prevents Humiliation 8. Go Easy with the Internal Cattle Prod 9. Nonattachment to Results 10. What Matters Most?

Our entire lives are governed by a voice in our heads. This voice is engaged in a ceaseless stream of thinking—most of it negative, repetitive, and self-referential.

The ego is never satisfied. No matter how much stuff we buy, no matter how many arguments we win or delicious meals we consume, the ego never feels complete.

The ego thrives on drama. It keeps our old resentments and grievances alive through compulsive thought.

“When you have one foot in the future and the other in the past, you piss on the present.”

As best I could understand it, the Buddha’s main thesis was that in a world where everything is constantly changing, we suffer because we cling to things that won’t last.

We suffer because we get attached to people and possessions that ultimately evaporate.

The route to true happiness was to achieve a visceral understanding of impermanence, which would take you off the emotional roller coaster and allow you to see your dramas and desires through a wider lens.

This is where the Buddhists diverged quite dramatically from self-help: They had an actual, practical program. It wasn’t expensive gimcrackery. No spendy seminars, no credit cards required. It was totally free.

In a nutshell, mindfulness is the ability to recognize what is happening in your mind right now—anger, jealousy, sadness, the pain of a stubbed toe, whatever—without getting carried away by it.

We can do more than just think; we also have the power simply to be aware of things—without judgment, without the ego. This is not to denigrate thinking, just to say that thinking without awareness can be a harsh master.

Picture the mind like a waterfall, they said: the water is the torrent of thoughts and emotions; mindfulness is the space behind the waterfall.

RAIN. R: recognize A: allow I: investigate N: non-identification

Bingo: respond not react.

Sam once said in his speech to the angry, befuddled atheists, learn how to be happy “before anything happens.” This happiness is self-generated, not contingent on exogenous forces; it’s the opposite of “suffering.”

The real superpower of meditation is not just to manage your ego more mindfully but to see that the ego itself has no actual substance. Close your eyes and look for it, and you won’t find any “self” you can put your finger on.

... ask yourself the following question: ‘Is this useful’?

Our life is the manifestation of our minds.

The pursuit of happiness becomes the source of our unhappiness.

The brain, it turns out, is constantly changing in response to experience. It’s possible to sculpt your brain through meditation just as you build and tone your body through exercise—to grow your gray matter the way doing curls grows your bicep.

The brain, the organ of experience, through which our entire lives are led, can be trained. Happiness is a skill.

Studies showed that the best way to engineer an epiphany was to work hard, focus, research, and think about a problem—and then let go. Do something else.

Mindfulness, I had come to believe, could, in fact, change the world.

“Practice of compassion is ultimately benefit to you. So I usually describe: we are selfish, but be wise selfish rather than foolish selfish.”

This clunky phrase “nonattachment to results” was my long-sought Holy Grail, the middle path, the marriage of “the price of security” and “the wisdom of insecurity.”

Nonattachment to results + self compassion = a supple relentlessness that is hard to match. Push hard, play to win, but don’t assume the fetal position if things don’t go your way.

“Meditation is not about feeling a certain way. It’s about feeling the way you feel.”

Do not anticipate trouble or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.

The best leader is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done and self restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.

The major driver of economics is the equilibrium approach, which has taken various forms over the years. General equilibrium is the statement that all the different parts of the economy influence each other, even if it's remote, like mortgage-backed securities and their demands on automobiles.

Being aware of your fear is smart. Overcoming it is the mark of a successful person.

I'm really looking forward to it, if you can imagine floating weightless, watching the world pour by through the big bay window of the space station playing a guitar; just a tremendous place to think about where we are in history.

If youre a composer theres never a moment youre not working.

Many journalists seem to believe that we have become little different from our enemies.

Don't ally your personal interests with the development of the company.

An absolutely necessary part of a writer's equipment, almost as necessary as talent, is the ability to stand up under punishment, both the punishment the world hands out and the punishment he inflicts upon himself.

When I think of myself, I'm definitely... I'm not like a comedian.

We cant do everything with a budget but we can put the country on much sounder financial footing.

High culture isn't what it used to be.

I came to magic absolutely hating magic on a very, very deep level.

Language is an archaeological vehicle... the language we speak is a whole palimpsest of human effort and history.

Cast changes are a hard thing. For two years, we had this little family. We weren't together when these changes were decided upon. It all happened during our hiatus.

I can't palm a basketball.

I've never been drawn to the feminist movement. I was brought up to believe that men had little to do with the home or children - except to bring in the money.

Today's Little Leaguers, and there are millions of them each year, pick up how to hit and throw and field just by watching games on TV. By the time they're out of high school, the good ones are almost ready to play professional ball.

I was 15 when I got my first job as a proofreader for an advertising agency in the City, earning £12 a week. But by then, I was already playing darts tournaments every weekend, regularly winning the £50 first prize. By the time I was 16 and winning two or three contests a weekend, I ditched the agency job and concentrated on darts.

I swing between procrastination and being really thorough so either way things aren't getting done quickly.

Any conductor who tells you that if he is approached for the directorship of the Chicago Symphony that he's not interested in it, you know perfectly well he's lying.

Mystery is the soul of existence.