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Stephen Batchelor

Stephen Batchelor Quotes

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Famous Stephen Batchelor Quotes

“Evasion of the unadorned immediacy of life is as deep-seated as it is relentless. Even with the ardent desire to be aware and alert in the present moment, the mind flings us into tawdry and tiresome elaborations of past and future. This craving to be otherwise, to be elsewhere, permeates the body, feeling, perceptions, will - consciousness itself. It is like the background radiation from the big bang of birth, the aftershock of having erupted into existence.”

MindMomentsFeelingsBodyBigsPastLife IsDesireExistenceConsciousnessBirthPerceptionBackgroundsPresent MomentRadiationElsewhereCravingBangsRelentlessArdentFlingEvasionTiresomeImmediacyAftershock
Author:Stephen Batchelor
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“This deep agnosticism is more than the refusal of conventional agnosticism to take a stand on whether God exists or whether the mind survives bodily death. It is the willingness to embrace the fundamental bewilderment of a finite, fallible creature as the basis for leading a life that no longer clings to the superficial consolations of certainty.”

MindCreaturesBasesFundamentalsEmbraceCertaintyWillingnessConventionalSuperficialConsolationFiniteRefusalAgnosticismGod ExistsBewildermentWhether God Exists
Book:Confession of a Buddhist Atheist
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“The denial of "self" challenges only the notion of a static self independent of body and mind-not the ordinary sense of ourself as a person distinct from everyone else. The notion of a static self is the primary obstruction to the realization of our unique potential as an individual being. By dissolving this fiction through a centered vision of the transiency, ambiguity, and contingency of experience, we are freed to create ourself anew.”

MindPersonsSelfBodyIndividualChallengesFictionVisionPracticeUniqueOrdinaryIndependentNotionRealizationPrimariesDenialMind And BodyAmbiguityStaticObstructionContingencyDissolving
Author:Stephen Batchelor
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