“So it is that there is nothing to be taught, but yet there is something to be learned. There is something we may come to understand, but not if we demand that it be explained to us. There is something that may happen to us, but not if we await its coming from outside of ourselves.”
Sheldon B. Kopp, If You Meet Buddha On The Road, Kill Him! (Page 190)
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“The Zen master warns: ‘If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him!’ This admonition points up that no meaning that comes from outside of ourselves is real. The Buddhahood of each of us has already been obtained. We need only recognize it. Philosophy, religion, patriotism, all are empty idols. The only meaning in our lives is what we each bring to them. Killing the Buddha on the road means destroying the hope that anything outside of ourselves can be our master. No one is any bigger than anyone else. There are no mothers or fathers for grown-ups, only sisters and brothers.”
Sheldon B. Kopp, If You Meet Buddha On The Road, Kill Him! (Page 188)
23 Greg McKeown Quotes from Essentialism and How To Live Better Via Less
Excerpt: These quotes from Essentialism present a hard-to-argue-with case for a better life via less. Maybe “more” isn’t what we need more of after all…
Read More »23 Greg McKeown Quotes from Essentialism and How To Live Better Via Less
“The Zen way to see the truth is through your everyday eyes. It is only the heartless questioning of life-as-it-is that ties a man in knots. A man does not need an answer in order to find peace. He needs only to surrender to his existence, to cease the needless, empty questioning. The secret of enlightenment is when you are hungry, eat; and when you are tired, sleep.”
Sheldon B. Kopp, If You Meet Buddha On The Road, Kill Him! (Page 187)
“As children we owned all of ourselves. As adults, in response to the expectations of others, we have had to hide much of ourselves away, out of sight even from our own eyes. The cost of such voluntary losses is great. No one can afford to give up any part of himself. All of you is worth something. Even the evil can be a source of vitality if only you can face it and transform it.”
Sheldon B. Kopp, If You Meet Buddha On The Road, Kill Him! (Page 141)
“When we raise our expectations for a student, a friend or a co-worker, we open the door to possibility. We offer them dignity and a chance to grow. We are offering them trust. But if we become attached to those expectations, if the expectation unmet leads us to distress or unhappiness, then that attachment undermines the very reason we created the expectation in the first place.”
Seth Godin
“The continuing struggle was once described in the following metaphor by a patient who had successfully completed a long course of psychotherapy: ‘I came to therapy hoping to receive butter for the bread of life. Instead, at the end, I emerged with a pail of sour milk, a churn, and instructions on how to use them.'”
Sheldon B. Kopp, If You Meet Buddha On The Road, Kill Him! (Page 138)
“We each learned again a bit more clearly that our old problems would remain temptations to messing-up for the rest of our lives, that we must each remember to remember that we will never be beyond error. Nothing important gets solved once and for all, finally and forever.”
Sheldon B. Kopp, If You Meet Buddha On The Road, Kill Him! (Page 138)
“Always love something higher than yourself, and you will never be in trouble; always love something bigger than yourself. People tend to love something lower than themselves, something smaller than themselves. You can control the smaller, you can dominate the smaller, and you can feel very good with the inferior, because it makes you look superior—then the ego is fulfilled. And once you start creating ego out of your love, then you are bound for hell. Love something higher, something bigger, something in which you will be lost and that you cannot control; you can only be possessed by it, but you cannot possess it. Then the ego disappears, and when love is without ego, it is prayer.”
Osho, Everyday Osho (Page 145)
“When a psychotherapy patient does do the work of facing up to some of what he must endure, he is often rewarded by a sense of increased freedom and joy. However, as he comes to realize that there will be no light without some darkness, no rest without further toil, he may balk disappointedly to find that troubles never end. New solutions lead to new problems. New freedom leads to new responsibilities.”
Sheldon B. Kopp, If You Meet Buddha On The Road, Kill Him! (Page 136)
“[The patient] was sure that if he worked hard enough, suffered long enough, or (failing that) at least if he were to be rescued by me, then Nirvana could be his. He can bear his pain for a while if only someday, someway, he will be able to reach a state of blissful perfection, a time when he will have no more conflicts, anxieties, or uncertainties. As I come toppling down off the pedestal on which he has placed me, he is horrified to learn that enlightenment does not provide perfection. Instead, it simply offers the pedestrian possibility of living with the acceptance of imperfection.”
Sheldon B. Kopp, If You Meet Buddha On The Road, Kill Him! (Page 134)
