I've been collecting quotes for a while, and I've also wanted to write a little bit of what I think about them for each one. I thought this might be a good way to do that and to share them. I hope you enjoy.
Once you realize that the road is the goal and that you are always on the road, not to reach a goal, but to enjoy its beauty and its wisdom, life ceases to be a task and becomes natural and simple, in itself an ecstasy.
“Rather than looking at the world through the eyes of a judge, look at the world through the eyes of compassion.”
To play a wrong note is insignificant;
to play without passion is inexcusable.
“What you resist persists”
Don’t think about elephants.
You cannot teach anyone before they are ready. You cannot teach someone to be wise just as you cannot open a cocoon before the butterfly is ready.
Arguing happens when the ego is trying to defend a position or perspective. What it defends has nothing to do with truth. It has to do with the attachment. This is why silence is better than all these words. It is why I tell you that you are thinking too much. The ego wants to stay as it is. New information that threatens ego will be fought, not accepted.
Let those who wish to learn come to you. Others will just argue and gain no benefit.
When the teacher is ready, the student will appear.
Finding the courage to go to the places that scare us cannot happen without compassionate inquiry into the workings of ego… Openness doesn’t come from resisting our fears but from getting to know them well.
“The Self cannot leave You.
Awareness cannot leave You.
Everything else will leave You.
But Awareness is what You Are.”
— Mooji (via waking-heart)
This quote expresses well one of the main points of Gödel, Escher, Bach. I love how all of this stuff ties together. Hofstadter explains how he thinks consciousness comes from self-reference. It is the same, or similar, idea as “I think, therefore I am,” but not cliche. Consciousness is awareness. Awareness of the self is self-referential. Awareness of the self is who you are.
Today, the tree delivered her sermon in blossom.
Many attempted to understand with the conceptual mind. Some tried to follow the tree, longing to blossom one day like her. A battle began, between the ‘treealists’ and the ‘non-treealists’. What did she mean?
Other listened deeply in silence, and stillness, and the ancient teaching was alive in them.
“In life, you don’t get what you deserve. You get what you negotiate. So don’t be afraid to ask.”
Not sure where I found this, but I really like it because it expressed something I was thinking in better words. I had a thought for a while along the lines of “You get out of this world what you take.” That seemed too harsh and selfishly lonely. This sentiment is selfishly lonely in the way that it places you alone at the center of the universe as the prime mover, narrow-sighted, taking what you want and can. It gives a you-deserve-everything vibe. By using the word “negotiate” instead of “take,” this quote gets away from that feeling of deserving anything. It also adds a sense of interaction and connection with the world around you.
To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease, and lightness. This state is then no longer dependent upon things being in a certain way, good or bad. It seems almost paradoxical, yet when your inner dependency on form is gone, the general conditions of your life, the outer forms, tend to improve greatly. Things, people, or conditions that you thought you needed for your happiness now come to you with no struggle or effort on your part, and you are free to enjoy and appreciate them - while they last. All those things, of course, will still pass away, cycles will come and go, but with dependency gone there is no fear of loss anymore. Life flows with ease.
Six mistakes mankind keeps making century after century:
Believing that personal gain is made by crushing others;
Worrying about things that cannot be changed or corrected;
Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it;
Refusing to set aside trivial preferences;
Neglecting development and refinement of the mind;
Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do.
“Don’t do the task; be the task.”
- Ram Dass
You’ve got to realize that the task is part of who you are. Many people think of themselves as a sort of independent, material being, like a machine. You have the machine, and separately you have the task the machine is supposed to perform. But there is so much more to who we are. We are not a clump of particles but rather a pattern of particles. What makes us ourselves is what we do. You cannot sit still and be you. You can’t separate what you do from who you are. Your existence depends on how you interact with the world around you. You are your actions. Really, you are more your actions than you are the matter that makes you. When you realize this, it makes doing hard tasks easier or simply go away by having them just be part of yourself.
If you’re stuck in an awful mood or bad place, try giving your mood away. Although you may not wish your mood on your worst enemy, try giving it to them anyway. Imagine you could take your mood and inflict it on the person you hate the most. Imagine that person suffering the way you do. If somebody broke your heart and feels fine about it, imagine it the other way around. Imagine feeling fine while the other person suffers so. How does it feel to feel fine?
Now take your bad mood and give it to someone you love. Take your horrible feelings and give them to your sweet grandmother or your best friend. Imagine that person going through all the angst and hopelessness that you feel. Imagine that you are the one consoling them as they process their feelings. How does it feel to be full of compassion?
It’s just as well that we can’t give our moods away. They are there for us to feel, but it is helpful to remember that we can do something with our moods. We can entertain new thoughts that give us a handle on even the most difficult ones. If we can feel compassion for a loved one suffering as we do, we can feel compassion for ourselves. Anybody who feels like that deserves compassion. Connecting with compassion, whether it comes from yourself, your best friend, your grandmother or your worst enemy will help you exchange your mood for the next one. The next mood, inspired by compassion, will be more enjoyable.
Any task you can accomplish in 2 minutes is worth doing now.
