“You are not special, but you are unique.”
Source: The Talk: A Young Person's Guide to Life's Big Questions
“To be called is to be drawn by something outside yourself, something bigger than yourself.”
Source: The Talk: A Young Person's Guide to Life's Big Questions
“An essential part of figuring out who you are is taking your eyes off yourself and seeing everything that is not you.”
Source: The Talk: A Young Person's Guide to Life's Big Questions
“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