Archives
“If, like many people, you tend to be vaguely unhappy much of the time, it can be very helpful to manufacture a feeling of gratitude by simply contemplating all the terrible things that have not happened to you, or to think of how many people would consider their prayers answered if they could only live as you are now. The mere fact that you have the leisure to read this book puts you in a very rarefied company. Many people on earth at this moment can’t even imagine the freedom that you currently take for granted.”
Sam Harris, Waking Up (Page 96)
“A woman once came to Gandhi with her child, concerned about her child’s habit of eating too much sugar. Knowing how much her child respected Gandhi, she asked him, ‘Could you please tell my daughter to stop eating sugar?’ Gandhi listened and then replied, ‘Please come back in two weeks.’ The woman and her child returned two weeks later. This time, Gandhi simply told the child, ‘Please do not eat sugar.’ Grateful, the mother thanked him, but she couldn’t help asking, ‘Why did we need to wait two weeks for you to say that?’ Gandhi said, ‘Two weeks ago, I was eating sugar.’“
Unknown
“My suffering was entirely the product of my thoughts. Whatever the needs of the moment, I had a choice: I could do what was required calmly, patiently, and attentively, or do it in a state of panic. Every moment of the day—indeed, every moment throughout one’s life—offers an opportunity to be relaxed and responsive or to suffer unnecessarily.”
Sam Harris, Waking Up (Page 95)
Identity is tricky. You need it to have a frame of reference that helps you interact with the world, but too much identity and added labels will push you away from the truth of impermanence. Wisdom will welcome you to its home, but you have to disarm yourself before you enter. Wisdom will find you ready and worthy when you let go of all ideas and views. You can only enter when you are ready to observe yourself without judgment and without a perception that is hampered by the past. Understanding yourself is one thing, but timeless wisdom asks you to take a step further by letting go of everything.
Yung Pueblo
“In my view, the realistic goal to be attained through spiritual practice is not some permanent state of enlightenment that admits of no further efforts but a capacity to be free in this moment, in the midst of whatever is happening. If you can do that, you have already solved most of the problems you will encounter in life.”
Sam Harris, Waking Up (Page 49)
“We are made alone. That aloneness is our freedom. And it is not against love. In fact, only a person who is alone and knows how to be alone will be able to love. This is the paradox of love: That only the person who is alone can love, and only the person who loves becomes alone. They come together. So if you are not capable of being alone, you will not be capable of being in love either. Then all your so-called love will be just an escape from yourself. It will not be real love, it will not be real relating. Who will relate with whom? You have not even related with yourself; how can you relate with the other? You are not there—who is going to relate with others? So a false kind of love exists in the world: You are trying to escape from yourself, the other is trying to escape from herself or himself, and you are both seeking shelter in each other. It is a mutual deception.”
Osho, Everyday Osho (Page 312)
“In one sense, the Buddhist concept of enlightenment really is just the epitome of ‘stress reduction’—and depending on how much stress one reduces, the results of one’s practice can seem more or less profound. According to the Buddhist teachings, human beings have a distorted view of reality that leads them to suffer unnecessarily. We grasp at transitory pleasures. We brood about the past and worry about the future. We continually seek to prop up and defend an egoic self that doesn’t exist. This is stressful—and spiritual life is a process of gradually unraveling our confusion and bringing this stress to an end. According to the Buddhist view, by seeing things as they are, we cease to suffer in the usual ways, and our minds can open to states of well-being that are intrinsic to the nature of consciousness.”
Sam Harris, Waking Up (Page 48)
