“We often do not experience reality directly as it is, but rather we impose our own mental concepts and illusions onto reality, and then react to our own projections as if they were true.”
Source: Awake to What Is: Discovering Peace in the Present Moment
“If you have ever watched a football game, you will likely recall that while the game is being played, there is a commentator who is narrating the plays of the game and making interpretations. Our thoughts are just like this. In our mind, we have the direct experience and we have the commentator that narrates and describes our direct experience.
The commentator of a football game isn’t really necessary, and he doesn’t affect the activity of the game in any way. He is just describing the game to the audience, and doing so from his perspective, with his own opinions, based on his mood, memory, education, past experiences and so on. In ourselves, the commentator is also unnecessary, and does not change the experience that it is commenting on. It merely describes it from its own biased perspective, with its own opinions, based on its mood, memory, education, past experiences, and so on.
Our problem is that we have mistaken the comments of the commentator for the reality that is being commented on. We have confused our own identity as being that of the commentator, and we believe that what is being described is actually the truth of reality.”
Source: Awake to What Is: Discovering Peace in the Present Moment
“While we fear the discomfort of dissolving our fixed beliefs and mental patterns, we often overlook the fact that it is because of these mental patterns that we are unhappy in the first place.”
Source: Awake to What Is: Discovering Peace in the Present Moment
“Ultimately, each of us will have to determine for ourselves who Jesus is and what he represents. For me, he is an artist of life, and what he teaches is the fine art of living. Perhaps this is my bias; perhaps it is not.”
Source: The Zen Teachings of Jesus
“Zen is a transcultural and trans-religious phenomenon. No matter where you are, you can always find it. Zen is in you.”
Source: The Zen Teachings of Jesus
“True spirituality begins with relaxation.”
Source: The Zen Teachings of Jesus
“What most people refer to as "Seriousness" is actually a sign of the ego. Most of us are "serious" because we are too self-obsessed - obsessed by our self-importance and our own notions of what is good, what is right, what is true, etc.”
Source: The Zen Teachings of Jesus
“We have been conditioned to treat rationality as sacred. But life itself is, in a very deep sense, absurd. It will not render itself to the tyranny of reason. Even the most wise cannot help but be flabbergasted by a three-year-old who keeps asking why. If you are not convinced, try asking yourself what is the reason for living. Life is basically a mystery that is not meant to be solved by our intellect. It cannot be "known" through the brain but through the heart.”
Source: The Zen Teachings of Jesus
“Why are we so unhappy despite our material affluence? [...] [T]he modern world has lost the art of "ordinary magic" - the art of transforming our ordinary, mundane, and perhaps humdrum existence into a life of beauty and joy.”
Source: The Zen Teachings of Jesus
“Just as a biologist cannot find life by dissecting it, an artist cannot find beauty by analyzing it.”
Source: The Zen Teachings of Jesus