“When we fancy ourselves to be a particular thing with a name, we see ourselves as we would a cork in a stream. What we do not realize is that there is only stream. What we fancy as particular is, from the first, only movement, change and flow.”
Source: Buddhism Plain & Simple: The Practice of Being Aware, Right Now, Every Day
“[W]hen you practise right meditation, you 'cease from practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words and following speech, and learn the backward step that turns your light inwardly to illuminate your self.”
Source: Buddhism Plain & Simple: The Practice of Being Aware, Right Now, Every Day
“[A] book is not merely a book, it is the sun as well.”
Source: Buddhism Plain & Simple: The Practice of Being Aware, Right Now, Every Day
“[W]e have endless opportunities to forget the self – in planting a tree for future generations; in creating a poem, a meal, a vessel of clay;”
Source: Buddhism Plain & Simple: The Practice of Being Aware, Right Now, Every Day
“If your idea of good opposes something else, you can be sure that [it] is not absolute or certain.”
Source: Buddhism Plain & Simple: The Practice of Being Aware, Right Now, Every Day
“The only way we can be free in each moment is to become what each moment is.”
Source: Buddhism Plain & Simple: The Practice of Being Aware, Right Now, Every Day
“There's nothing you can find - … nothing you can even imagine – that doesn't originate, develop, or exist in relation to other things.”
Source: Buddhism Plain & Simple: The Practice of Being Aware, Right Now, Every Day
“We imagine that things come into existence, endure for a while, and then pass out of existence”
Source: Buddhism Plain & Simple: The Practice of Being Aware, Right Now, Every Day
“To forget the self is to remember that we don't exist alone, but in relation to other people, to other creatures, to the planet, and to the universe.”
Source: Buddhism Plain & Simple: The Practice of Being Aware, Right Now, Every Day
“[F]ocus not on ourselves as a force in charge of the manipulation of others, but on how our lives interpenetrate those of others – and … all creatures of a dynamic universe.”
Source: Buddhism Plain & Simple: The Practice of Being Aware, Right Now, Every Day
“[H]ow can something cease to exist that has no solid existence in the first place?”
Source: Buddhism Plain & Simple: The Practice of Being Aware, Right Now, Every Day
“How can a hard and fast view of a world that is never hard and fast possibly be accurate?”
Source: Buddhism Plain & Simple: The Practice of Being Aware, Right Now, Every Day
“There's no rule in the end, but only the situation and the inclination of your mind”
Source: Buddhism Plain & Simple: The Practice of Being Aware, Right Now, Every Day
“Truth is not … something to believe or disbelieve. The things we believe are always less than Truth[.]”
Source: Buddhism Plain & Simple: The Practice of Being Aware, Right Now, Every Day
“[A] view of the world is nothing more than a set of beliefs, a way to freeze the world in our mind. … [T]his can never match Reality, … because the world isn't frozen.”
Source: Buddhism Plain & Simple: The Practice of Being Aware, Right Now, Every Day
“[I]mpermanence [is] the very thing that makes [life] vibrant, wonderful, and alive.”
Source: Buddhism Plain & Simple: The Practice of Being Aware, Right Now, Every Day
“[T]here is really nothing 'out there' to get because, already, within this moment, everything is whole and complete.”
Source: Buddhism Plain & Simple: The Practice of Being Aware, Right Now, Every Day
“We can only be here. We can't leave. We are always here.”
Source: Buddhism Plain & Simple: The Practice of Being Aware, Right Now, Every Day
“Good and bad aren't absolutes. They are beliefs, judgements, ideas based on limited knowledge as well as on the inclinations of our minds.”
Source: Buddhism Plain & Simple: The Practice of Being Aware, Right Now, Every Day
“The impossibility of arriving at Truth by giving up your own authority and following the lights of others. Such a path will only lead to an opinion.”
Source: Buddhism Plain & Simple: The Practice of Being Aware, Right Now, Every Day
“Belief is at best an educated, informed conjecture about Reality.”
Source: Buddhism Plain & Simple: The Practice of Being Aware, Right Now, Every Day
“Belief may serve as a useful stopgap measure in the absence of actual experience, but once you see … [it] becomes unnecessary.”
Source: Buddhism Plain & Simple: The Practice of Being Aware, Right Now, Every Day
“We have all sorts of stories about heaven and hell, about oblivion and nothingness, about 'coming back,' and so on. But they are all stories.”
Source: Buddhism Plain & Simple: The Practice of Being Aware, Right Now, Every Day
“[E]ven in getting the wonderful things we long for, we tend to live in want of something more[.]”
Source: Buddhism Plain & Simple: The Practice of Being Aware, Right Now, Every Day
“Good times come and go. And bad times do the same.”
Source: Buddhism Plain & Simple: The Practice of Being Aware, Right Now, Every Day