YOUR PRAYER SHOULD BE,
"Break the legs of what I want to happen. Humiliate
my desire. Eat me like candy. It's Spring,
and finally, I have no will."
THE ASPECT OF THINGS
that are most important for us are hidden because of
their simplicity and familiarity.
...WESTERNERS THINK THAT ALL THAT IS NEGATIVE
and positive is only caused from outside of themselves. They materialize
and externalize their experiences, never understanding the connection between outer and inner phenomena or interdependent phenomena, looking for explanations only from objects through extreme nihilist habit instead of from the subjective experience of their own minds.
--Thinly Norbu Rinpoche
from "Words For the West," Tricycle, Fall 1998
YOU CAN OBSERVE A LOT
by watching.
DUE TO OUR FEELINGS ARISING FROM CONTACT,
we think and we rationalize, conceptualize, theorize, philosophize and speculate. Because of the feeling arising from the six senses, we increase our desire; we come to wrong views and wrong beliefs. We recall our past sights, smells, sounds, tastes, touches and ideas and build up more desires, thoughts, concepts, beliefs, ideas, theories and philosophies.
--Bhante Henepola Gunaratana
from "Are You Happy?" a forthcoming book
'YOUR KARMA IS YOUR DHARMA'...
In other words, the stuff of my life is the guru's teaching.
--Ram Dass
from Inquiring Mind, Fall, 1998
SOME THERE ARE THAT TORMENT THEMSELVES,
afresh with the memory of what is past; others, again, afflict themselves with the apprehension of evils to come; and very ridiculously both---for the one does not now concern us, and the other not yet---One should count each day a separate life.
FINISH EACH DAY & BE DONE WITH IT.
You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely.
IT IS USELESS TO THINK OF OTHER PEOPLE'S DEFILEMENTS,
totally useless. The only defilements that are of any interest are our own. They are exactly the same as everybody else's, only in different proportions.
--Sister Ayya Khema
from "Be An Island Unto Yourself," 1986, Sri Lanka
THE PRACTICE OF MEDITATION---MINDFULNESS---.
is for me a practice of love. Unconscious love is an oxymoron, an impossibility. To be fully present with onself and others, I believe, is the truest love there is. Our courage to enter the darkest recesses of our hearts and minds births a deliverance from all that has kept us tight, disconnected and loveless for so long. We forget and we remember.
--Gavin Harrison
Inquiring Mind, Fall, 1998
THE TEACHINGS ARE LIKE A RAFT,
to be abandoned once you have crossed the flood. Since you should abandon even good states of mind generated by these teachings, how much more so should you abandon bad states of mind!
PREVIOUSLY in Quotations:
QUOTATIONS, Issue 2:
Jack Kornfield, Ajahn Jumnien, Kabir, Toni Packer and more.
QUOTATIONS: Issue 1:
The Dalai Lama, Eudora Welty, Jim Harrison, James Baldwin and more.
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