Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The approach is that the best way to use unwanted circumstances on the path of enlightenment is not to resist but to lean into them.
Until we stop clinging to the concept of good and evil, the world will continue to manifest as friendly goddesses and harmful demons.
If you aren't feeding the fire of anger or the fire of craving by talking to yourself, then the fire doesn't have anything to feed on.
Meditation practice isn't about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It's about befriending who we are already.
Sticking with that uncertainty, getting the knack of relaxing in the midst of chaos, learning not to panic-this is the spiritual path.
Meditation is not about getting out of ourselves or achieving something better. It is about getting in touch with what you already are.
If it's painful, you become willing not just to endure it but also to let it awaken your heart and soften you. You learn to embrace it.
I can't overestimate the importance of accepting ourselves exactly as we are right now, not as we wish we were or think we ought to be.
Tonglen practice begins to dissolve the illusion that each of us is alone with this personal suffering that no one else can understand.
Ego is something that you come to know - something that you befriend by not acting out or by repressing all the feelings that you feel.
We give it up and just look directly with compassion and humor at who we are. Then loneliness is no threat and heartache, no punishment.
The Process of becoming unstuck requires tremendous bravery, because basically we are completely changing our way of perceiving reality.
Patience takes courage. It is not an ideal state of calm. In fact, when we practice patience we will see our agitation far more clearly.
True compassion does not come from wanting to help out those less fortunate than ourselves but from realizing our kinship with all beings.
To cultivate equanimity we practice catching ourselves when we feel attraction or aversion, before it hardens into grasping or negativity.
Most spiritual experiences begin with suffering. They begin with groundlessness. They begin when the rug has been pulled out from under us.
We feel that we have to be right so that we can feel good... The whole right and wrong business closes us down and makes our world smaller.
What happens with you when you begin to feel uneasy, unsettled, queasy? Notice the panic, notice when you instantly grab for something. (51)
As we learn to have compassion for ourselves, the circle of compassion for others - what and whom we can work with, and how - becomes wider.
When we protect ourselves so we won't feel pain, that protection becomes like armor, like armor that imprisons the softness of of the heart.
The painful thing is that when we buy into disapproval,we are practicing disapproval. When we buy into harshness,we are practicing harshness.
But all the time our warmth and brilliance are right here. This is who we really are. We are one blink of an eye away from being fully awake.
One can appreciate & celebrate each moment — there’s nothing more sacred. There’s nothing more vast or absolute. In fact, there’s nothing more!
We can drop the fundamental hope that there is a better "me" who one day will emerge. We can't just jump over ourselves as if we were not there.
Without giving up hope—that there’s somewhere better to be, that there’s someone better to be—we will never relax with where we are or who we are.
It becomes increasingly clear that we won’t be free of self-destructive patterns unless we develop a compassionate understanding of what they are.
Trying to run away is never the answer to being a fully human. Running away from the immediacy of our experience is like preferring death to life.
We don't set out to save the world; we set out to wonder how other people are doing and to reflect on how our actions affect other people's hearts.
Remember that this is not something we do just once or twice. Interrupting our destructive habits and awakening our heart is the work of a lifetime.
Don’t get caught up in hopes of what you’ll achieve and how good your situation will be some day in the future. What you do right now is what matters.
It isn't the things that happen to us in our lives that cause us to suffer, it's how we relate to the things that happen to us that causes us to suffer.
In practicing meditation, we're not trying to live up to some kind of ideal -- quite the opposite. We're just being with our experience, whatever it is.
Whatever happens in your life, joyful or painful, do not be swept away by reactivity. Be patient with yourself and don't lose your sense of perspective.
Generosity is an activity that loosens us up. By offering whatever we can - a dollar, a flower, a word of encouragement - we are training in letting go.
As long as our orientation is toward perfection or success, we will never learn about unconditional friendship with ourselves, nor will we find compassion.
There isn't anything except your own life that can be used as ground for your spiritual practice. Spiritual practice is your life, twenty-four hours a day.
Our patterns are well established, seductive, and comforting. Just wanting for them to be ventilated isn't enough. Those of us who struggle with this know.
we come to realize that other people's welfare is just as important as our own. In helping them, we help ourselves. In helping ourselves, we help the world.
Opening to the world begins to benefit ourselves and others simultaneously. The more we relate with others, the more quickly we discover where we're blocked.
Lean into the sharp points and fully experience them. The essence of bravery is being without self-deception. Wisdom is inherent in (understanding) emotions.
We can gradually drop our ideals of who we think we ought to be, or who we think we want to be, or who we think other people think we want to be or ought to be.
The point is that our true nature is not some ideal that we have to live up to. It's who we are right now, and that's what we can make friends with and celebrate.
Meditation isn't really about getting rid of thoughts, it's about changing the pattern of grasping on to things, which in our everyday experience is our thoughts.
I have all the support I need to simply relax and be with the transitional, in-process quality of my life. I have all I need to engage in the process of awakening.
Ordinarily we are swept away by habitual momentum and don't interrupt our patterns slightly. When we feel betrayed or disappointed, does it occur to us to practice?
We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart.
Our true nature is like a precious jewel: although it may be temporarily buried in mud, it remains completely brilliant and unaffected. We simply have to uncover it.
Wholeheartedly do what it takes to awaken your clear-seeing intelligence, but one day at a time, one moment at a time. If we live that way, we will benefit this earth.
it is only to the extent that we are willing to expose ourselves again and again to annihilation that we are able to find that part of ourselves that is indestructible.
Peace isn’t an experience free of challenges, free of rough and smooth, it’s an experience that’s expansive enough to include all that arises without feeling threatened.