“When you lose a loved one, you suffer. But if you know how to look deeply, you have a chance to realize that his or her nature is truly the nature of no birth, no death. There is manifestation and there is the cessation of manifestation in order to have another manifestation. You have to be very keen and very alert in order to recognize the new manifestations of just one person.”
“I m fine. I m fine, he says, and fine, fine repeats in his head as he escapes back into the chill. Around him, a spin of bodies in dark coats, tapping thumbs on pads, pressing phones to heads, settling buds into ear canals, projecting an invisible shield of music as they move through the crowd, digital companionship warmer than the bodies around them. Every soul on the street is sunk within its body. Sometimes Bit imagines that he, alone, bears witness to the world.”
“Normalize listening more than you talk.”
“Emotion is a human-made concept.”
“Powiedz mi, co mam zrobić, żeby osiągnąć taką mądrość? Mędrzec patrzy na niego i powiada: Siadaj. Uczeń siada obok niego i powtarza swoje. No, powiedz mi, rebe, to co ja mam robić? Rabin milczy i nie rusza się z zydelka. Siedzą kilka minut w milczeniu. Wreszcie uczeń nie wytrzymuje i pyta Rebe, czy ja coś źle robię? Rabin patrzy na niego i odpowiada: Kiedy ty siedzisz, to siedź. Kiedy ty idziesz, to idź. Ja, kiedy siedzę, to siedzę, a ty już wstałeś i dokądś pędzisz. Ja, kiedy idę, to idę, a ty, kiedy idziesz, to już doszedłeś.”
“Do not do her work for her. Do not build her up in your mind. She s only one woman.”
“Holistic, unconditional love, agape, is the unity in which duality disappears. It is as if a certain internal boundary has vanished. With agape what we love is ourselves, the way a mother loves her child as herself. This is the meaning of loving another as yourself – transcending our phenomenal borders and experiencing ourselves in another and the other in, not apart from, us. Eventually, if love is comprehensive, it unites us with everything and allows us to know that we are everything. Therefore, how can we support the illusion of this isolated, separate self that is threatened by and defends itself from everything outside? Love returns us to the unity that is actually Reality. Reality is not the isolation, suspicion, envy, selfishness, and fear of loss that we have come to accept as normal; it is that we are all part of one Life. The same Spirit moves in us all. You come to know this better when you realize that we all have the same kinds of feelings, the same wish to be known and respected, to share ourselves and let down our defenses. We are continually faced with a choice between personal achievement, personal security, and comfort on the one hand, and working for the whole and helping everyone and everything toward perfection on the other. We are faced with a choice between looking out for ourselves and contributing wholeheartedly to a common good. We are faced with focusing on self-love or increasing our love of all Life. (p. 191)”
“Seek and see all the marvels around you. You will get tired of looking at yourself alone, and that fatigue will make you deaf and blind to everything else. - Don Juan”
“Buddha first taught metta meditation as an antidote: as a way of surmounting terrible fear when it arises.”
“…you can actually taste the sources of unhappiness breaking up….The taste of purification can’t be put into words, but its acquisition marks the transition to a mature spiritual palate…There is a taste that comes about, when a person experiences pleasure or pain with equanimity. It doesn’t matter if…emotions or physical pain exist. Every moment of the future will become marginally less filled with suffering and more fulfilling….”
“You must know that weather or not you are practicing mental prayer has nothing to do with keeping your lips closed. If, while I am speaking with God, I am fully conscious of doing so, and if this is more real to me than the words I am uttering, then I am combining mental and vocal prayer. I am amazed when people tell me that you are speaking with God by reciting the Paternoster even while you are thinking of worldly things. When you speak with a Lord so great, you should think of Who it is you are addressing and what you yourself are, if only that you may speak to Him with proper respect. How can you address a king with the reverence he deserves unless you are clearly conscious of his position and yours?”
“Although social and personal circumstances will play their part in contributing to how an individual suffers, in Buddhist thought blame is seen as a poison that will only lead to negative actions and will do nothing to reduce suffering.”
“To relinquish the futile effort to control change is one of the strengthening forces of true detachment & thus true love.”
“We yearn for there to be meaning to our lives, balanced with a sense of inner peace & joy.”
“With attachment all that seems to exist is just me & that object I desire.”
“To be mindful of social phenomena is thus to identify more clearly hatred, greed, and delusion as well as the seeds of wisdom and compassion both around us and in us. (p. 52)”
“We cannot force the development of mindfulness.”