“They shake hands and all my past selves stretch between them like a fragile chain of paper dolls.”
Source: Hourglass: Time, Memory, Marriage
“Those bound up in the self are broken down unrelentingly at Eiheiji through name-calling and thrashing. All the baggage people bring with them—academic achievement, status, honor, possessions, even character—is slashed to bits, leaving them to sink to rock bottom and thus cast everything aside.”
Source: Eat Sleep Sit: My Year at Japan's Most Rigorous Zen Temple
“The identity I describe as “self” is simply an aspect, as I am consciousness experiencing itself in manifest form”
Source: A World of Yoga: 700 Asanas for Mindfulness and Well-Being
“He sighed and bowed deeply. “Sundari. I was standing here thinking nothing could be more beautiful than this sunset tonight, but I was mistaken. You standing here in the setting sun with your hair and skin aglow is almost more than a man can…fully appreciate.”
“Go be different than you've been before! You are the x-factor.”
Source: Rethink Everything: You “Know" About Social Media
“To study the way of enlightenment is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away. No trace of enlightenment remains, and this no-trace continues endlessly.”
Source: The Essential Dogen: Writings of the Great Zen Master
“What is the basis of freedom and why is it so satisfying? Vimalakirti says that in an authentic moment of giving we are "free of the habits of 'I' and 'mine'" (32), that the feeling derives from being "without grasping," "without attachment" (32), and "free of the habitual notion of possession" (25). He says further than in a generous act we are "joyful and without regret" because the weight of our "selves" has been momentarily lifted. That sense of exhilarating selflessness is what generates "the great joy of the bodhisattva" (57). In being able to give, we feel some degree of elation, a sense of being lifted out of ourselves into an experience of liberation that is buoyant and joyful, even if momentary.”
Source: Living Skillfully: Buddhist Philosophy of Life from the Vimalakirti Sutra
“From Good Friday in AD 33 through the following Sabbath day, the apostles were whimpering, broken fugitives. After Resurrection Sunday, they were lions who revolutionized the world. What caused this astonishing change? After watching Jesus undeniably die, the apostles saw, touched, and ate with the risen Lord, not once, but many times for over forty days. The fact of the Resurrection demonstrated to them (and demonstrates to us) that Jesus is God; and if he is God, his teaching is true. Only the realization of that could have been worth more to the apostles than their lives.”
Source: Biographies of Jesus' Apostles: Ambassadors in Chains
“I never thought of myself as an odd one or different in any way…I just had a way, a way that was mine and mine alone. A way that was maybe a bit peculiar, but I liked that. I liked the fact that other people weren’t odd in the same way… I felt that being odd suited me… My oddness had a certain something, I thought. A style. A style that belonged to me. Then it became a habit and I no longer thought about my odd style, that was how I was and that was that.”
“You are not your dryness," the Boys said in small copy on the box, "You are not your sebum." They wanted to make the world a better place, and that began with my enlarged pores.”
Source: Y/N