- “When we see one another as different aspects of ourselves—as ourselves experiencing a different situation and circumstance—we develop a love, a connection, and a unity that allows us to see beyond the various forms, as well as the various ways that someone may act out when they have forgotten their connection and their formless nature. If you look at another in this light, you will see a Being that is just like you, looking back at you” ― Joseph P. Kauffman, The Answer Is YOU: A Guide to Mental, Emotional, and Spiritual Freedom
- “I don’t know’, ‘Maybe’, ‘Perhaps’ – If youhave stopped using these phrases, you are imprisoned by your beliefs. You don’t have beliefs. Beliefs have you.” ― Shunya
- “Doffing the ego’ssafe glory, he findshis naked reality.” ― Dag Hammarskjöld, Markings
- “Some people live as though they are already dead. There are people moving around us who are consumed by their past, terrified of their future, and stuck in their anger and jealousy. They are not alive; they are just walking corpses.” ― Thich Nhat Hanh, You Are Here: Discovering the Magic of the Present Moment
- “Some we proudly display on our arms, while others we shyly conceal. Tattoo the moments of sorrow as well as the moments of splendor and beauty. Tattoo in an acknowledgment and tribute to home, and tattooing your beliefs that define who you are. Whether we intended to or not, every moment of our lives are tattooed to our heart.” ― Forrest Curran, Purple Buddha Project: Purple Book of Self-Love
- “Love was never meant to be contained solely in our hearts, just as life in a seed was always meant to break through into the world and become beauty to be shared.” ― Forrest Curran, Purple Buddha Project: Purple Book of Self-Love
- “Nothingness is the only fact. Silence is its only possible description. Rest all are just interpretations.” ― Shunya
- “When the mind is exhausted of images, it invents its own.” ― Gary Snyder, Earth House Hold
- “Not taking an action is also an action. Not making a choice is also a choice. Body-mind can’t escape from action. But if your action or inaction is guided by the awareness of your soul and silence of your inner self, it will take you out of the mess.” ― Shunya
- “In terms of achieving what I call “being in the right place at the right time,” one has to know balance. Not from the outside as an observer, but from the inside out. For every individual, that requires creating a successful balanced interface between what one is compelled by and the essential principles of nature, which we comprehend through our intuitive conscience. Those are our clues to the mystery. When one gets it right, there it is.” ― Darrell Calkins
- “The story of the Fall tells us in mythical language that “original sin” is not simply a stigma arbitrarily making good pleasures seem guilty, but a basic inauthenticity, a kind of predisposition to bad faith in our understanding of ourselves and of the world. It implies a determined willfulness in trying to make things be other than they are in order that we may be able to make them subserve, at any moment, to our individual desire for pleasure or for power. But since things do not obey our arbitrary impulsions, and since we cannot make the world correspond to and confirm the image of it dictated by our needs and illusions, our willfulness is inseparable from error and from suffering. Hence, Buddhism says, deluded life itself is in a state of Dukkha, and every movement of desire tends to bear ultimate fruit in pain rather than lasting joy, in hate rather than love, in destruction rather than creation. (Let us note in passing that when technological skill seems in fact to give man almost absolute power in manipulating the world, this fact is no way reverses his original condition of brokenness and error but only makes it all the more obvious. We who live in the age of the H-bomb and the extermination camp have reason to reflect on this, though such reflection is a bit unpopular.)” ― Thomas Merton, Zen and the Birds of Appetite
- “Because as you become better at everything, as the innate skills actually manifest in reality, the bar rises for the next jump. The core demand for evolution is relentless, and respect, happiness, love and joy are irrevocably tied to it.” ― Darrell Calkins, Re:
- “When it comes down to it, government is simply an abandonment of responsibility on the assumption that there are people, other than ourselves, who really know how to manage things. But the government, run ostensibly for the good of the people, becomes a self-serving corporation. To keep things under control, it proliferates law of ever-increasing complexity and unintelligibility, and hinders productive work by demanding so much accounting on paper that the record of what has been done becomes more important than what has actually been done. […] The Taoist moral is that people who mistrust themselves and one another are doomed.” ― Alan W. Watts
- “My hope and intent is to provide a wide range of resources and ideas that provoke real questions and considerations under the surface of common dialogue. With a definite thrust toward clues for moving beyond limiting patterns that restrict our personal and communal evolution and experience of, as well as effectiveness in, life. Part of that is about giving different angles of insight into the why and how of developing skills, whatever they may be. I think the larger discussion, or maybe the more relevant one surrounding skills development, involves what quality of fuel is being used to run the skill. Inevitably, and very quickly, this enters into considerations of how much of oneself one brings to the show. For example, anyone can learn a sophisticated skill in an extremely short period of time, once they’re completely convinced of the need, benefit and value of doing so and find enough full-bodied conviction to engage it accordingly (“You never hear anyone practicing a language; they simply listen and then begin to speak.” — Wade Davis).” ― Darrell Calkins
- “The best leaders of all, the people know not they exist. They turn to each other and say ‘We did it ourselves.” ― Zen Proverb
- “There is a famous expression in Zen: ‘On the way without leaving home.’ Life is a journey and, in that sense, man is always on the way. But the person who has realized the Primal Face of his True Self never leaves home. He is able to be on a journey while having, at the same time, the peace of mind he experiences in his own home.” ― J.K. Kadowaki, Zen and the Bible
- “Zen practice gets you out of your head and out working in the garden.” ― Marty Rubin
- “The monks find comfort, contentment, and even joy in the simplest of tasks, living each moment to its fullest by grounding themselves in the present.” ― Benjamin W. Decker, Practical Meditation for Beginners: 10 Days to a Happier, Calmer You
- “Ironically, many of the institutions that run the economy, such as medicine, education, law and even psychology are largely dependent upon failing health. If you add up the amounts of money exchanged in the control, anticipation and reaction to failing health (insurance, pharmaceutical research and products, reactive or compensatory medicine, related legal issues, consultation and therapy for those who are unwilling to improve their physical health and claim or believe the problem is elsewhere, etc.), you end up with an enormous chunk. To keep that moving, we need people to be sick. Then we have the extreme social emphasis placed on the pursuit and maintenance of a lifestyle based on making money at any cost, often at the sacrifice of health, sanity and well-being.” ― Darrell Calkins, Re:
- “Belief is at best an educated, informed conjecture about Reality.” ― Steve Hagen, Buddhism Plain and Simple
- “Every day, I take steps to resolve all my karmic ties, live with intention, smile and laugh often, express my love, and act on what brings me fulfillment. Why wait until we have one foot in the grave to suddenly become spiritual, forgiving, and at peace with the world?” ― Alaric Hutchinson, Living Peace: Essential Teachings for Enriching Life
- “All that exists is the present moment” ― Alaric Hutchinson, Living Peace: Essential Teachings for Enriching Life
- “Letting go is the lesson. Letting go is always the lesson. Have you ever noticed how much of our agony is all tied up with craving and loss?” ― Susan Gordon Lydon, The Knitting Sutra: Craft as a Spiritual Practice
- Zen in it’s essence is the art of seeing into the nature of one’s being, and it points the way from bondage to freedom. D.T. Suzuki
- Relax. Nothing is under control. Adi Da
- “For the unified mind in accord with the Way all self-centered striving ceases. Doubts and irresolutions vanish and life in true faith is possible. With a single stroke we are freed from bondage; nothing clings to us and we hold nothing. All is empty, clear, self-illuminating, with no exertion of the mind’s power.” ― Sengstan, Hsin Hsin Ming
- “Aggression, Violence, Exploitation, Depression, Despair, Prejudice, War, Intolerance, Poverty, Are all a result of a misunderstanding of the nature of Self.” ― Shoryu Bradley
- “Everything is in the root. If you pick the weed without getting the root out of the soil, be assured, it is going to grow back.” ― Sheila Burke
- “The Time gives you subscription packages. If you get fed up of materialistic packages, it gives you spiritual or religious packages. The idea is to keep you hooked to one thing or the other.” ― Shunya
- “To make man superman, add the word ‘super’ to the word ‘man’; or meditation to his day.” ― Mokokoma Mokhonoana