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

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.

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.”

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?

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.”

I'd always keep going back to the acting. Once the rent was paid, and the phone bill, the next money you had was for acting classes.

I had all the fame anyone could want, and I ran away from it.

Some men like to go in for polo, for example, and spend thousands of dollars on ponies. Some go nuts for paintings, and give half a million for a hunk of canvas in a fancy frame. But my passion is baseball.

It's really true in this country that more and more Americans think that underneath the economic crisis there's a values crisis, and we won't get to an economic recovery without a moral recovery as well. So a citizen's movement about values and economics I'm finding all over the country on main street, and Wall Street needs to pay attention to that.

I'm going into my first Olympics, whereas people I'm racing against are going into their third and fourth and probably last Olympics. So there's more pressure on them to perform. I've still got a whole future ahead of me. I am not even the Olympic champ.

Success represents the 1% of your work which results from the 99% that is called failure.

I think using anti-aging products really helps; the sooner the better, you know?

Reduce the complexity of life by eliminating the needless wants of life and the labors of life reduce themselves.

Sometimes I am so much my father's son that I give myself occasional creeps.

How success changes the opinion of men!

My political beliefs are my moral, quasi-religious framework.

My typical morning involves some time on the treadmill, but obviously I skip that a lot. Mostly, I wake up, check my email, then get to work on the various interviews and questions and phone calls that come with being an author.

I'm beyond the normal person. I'm not your everyday Joe.

You know that it is only through work that you can achieve anything, either in college or in the world.

You havent seen a tree until youve seen its shadow from the sky.

In a world where change is inevitable and continuous, the need to achieve that change without violence is essential for survival.

Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.

In our work and in our living, we must recognize that difference is a reason for celebration and growth, rather than a reason for destruction.

All things are ready, if our minds be so.

I have to say that as an actor, I really look for the role. I'm not really looking to see if it's for television or film, because there are highly talented people in both mediums.

I've loved Leia and Han since I was seven years old. Getting a chance to tell some of their adventures? Mind-blowing on every level. I wish I could go back in time and high-five my baby self.

Now I have to say I'm a complete atheist, I have no religious views myself and no spiritual views, except very watered down humanistic spiritual views, and consciousness is just a fact of life, it's a natural fact of life.