“We spend our lives lost in thought. The question is, what should we make of this fact? In the West, the answer has been ‘Not much.’ In the East, especially in contemplative traditions like those of Buddhism, being distracted by thought is understood to be the very wellspring of human suffering. From the contemplative point of view, being lost in thoughts of any kind, pleasant or unpleasant, is analogous to being asleep and dreaming. It’s a mode of not knowing what is actually happening in the present moment. It is essentially a form of psychosis. Thoughts themselves are not a problem, but being identified with thought is. Taking oneself to be the thinker of one’s thoughts—that is, not recognizing the present thought to be a transitory appearance in consciousness—is a delusion that produces nearly every species of human conflict and unhappiness. It doesn’t matter if your mind is wandering over current problems in set theory or cancer research; if you are thinking without knowing you are thinking, you are confused about who and what you are.”
Sam Harris, Waking Up (Page 101)
“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)
“Buddhism is one of the most beautiful approaches—but it is incomplete. Something is missing. It has no mysticism in it, no poetry, no romance; it is almost bare mathematics, a geometry of the soul but not a poetry of the soul. And unless you can dance, never be satisfied. Be silent, but use your silence as an approach toward blissfulness. Do a few dancing meditations, singing meditations, music, so at the same time, your capacity to enjoy, your capacity to be joyful also increases.”
Osho, Everyday Osho (Page 303)
“One of the most commonly used mantras in buddhism focuses on controlling negative emotions: ‘Om mani padme hūm,’ in which om is the generosity that purifies the ego, ma is the ethics taht purifies jealousy, ni is the patience that purifies passion and desire, pad is the precision that purifies bias, me is the surrender that purifies greed, and hūm is the wisdom that purifies hatred.”
Héctor García and Francesc Miralles, Ikigai (Page 170)
“The Buddhists believe that our presence can be healing; that by simply sharing space with another person and giving them our full, undivided attention, we can ease their suffering. Sometimes I wonder if the reason we don’t all feel so broken and lonely and insecure is because we rarely give each other our full, undivided attention.”
Cole Schafer
“There is a Buddhist parable that has guided me through many a perilous transition: A man is standing on the banks of a treacherous, raging river. It’s rainy season—if he can’t get to the other side, he’s done. He quickly builds a raft and uses it to safely cross the river. In joyous relief, he high-fives himself, lifts the raft, and heads toward the forest. But as he attempts to make his way through the dense tree cover, the raft is banging and knocking into trees and becoming entangled in vines, preventing him from moving forward. He only has one chance for survival: He must leave the raft behind—the vessel that saved his life yesterday is the same one that will kill him today if he does not let it go.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 193)
“The eight requirements that will eliminate suffering by correting false values and giving true knowledge of life’s meaning have been summed up as follows: First, you must see clearly what is wrong. Next, decide to be cured. You must act. Speak so as to aim at being cured. Your livelihood must not conflict with your therapy. The therapy must go forward at the ‘staying speed;’ the critical velocity that can be sustained. You must think and feel about it incessantly. Learn how to contemplate with the deep mind.”
Bruce Lee, Striking Thoughts (Page 162)
“[Bashō’s] fundamental teaching remained his conviction that in composing a poem, ‘There are two ways: one is entirely natural, in which the poem is born from within itself; the other way is to make it through the mastery of technique.’ His notion of the poem being ‘born within itself’ should under no circumstances be confused with its being self-originating. A fundamental tenet of Buddhism runs exactly to the contrary: nothing is self-originating.”
Bashō, Narrow Road To The Interior (Page 190)
“From a Buddhist point of view, human beings aren’t intrinsically aggressive; we are inherently peaceful. This is sometimes hard to believe. When we’re angry or upset, our untrained mind becomes belligerent and we routinely strike out at others. We imagine that reacting aggressively to the object of our emotion will resolve our pain. Throughout history we have used this approach over and over again. Striking out when we’re in pain is clearly one way we perpetuate misery. With a trained mind, a stable mind, a mind with a larger motivation than its own comfort, we find another way to work with difficulties of daily life. When we’re in a difficult situation, we maintain our seat. Instead of perpetuating misery by acting out aggression, we learn to use the rough spots to spark the courage to proceed on our journey. Eventually we may actually be able to turn the mind of anger into the energy of love and compassion.” ~ Sakyong Mipham, Turning the Mind Into An Ally (Page 26)
“Happiness arrives from many directions. If you have a notion that it comes only from one direction, you will miss all of these other opportunities because you want happiness to come only from the direction you want. You say, ‘I would rather die than marry anyone but her. I would rather die than lose my job, my reputation. I cannot be happy if I don’t get that degree or that promotion or that house.’ You have put many conditions on your happiness. And then, even if you do have all your conditions met, you still won’t be happy. You will just keep creating new conditions for your happiness. You will still want the higher degree, the better job and the more beautiful house. Please remember that your notions of happiness may be very dangerous. The Buddha said happiness can only be possible in the here and now. ” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear
“No self also means emptiness, a technical term in Buddhism that means the absence of a separate self. We are of the nature of no self, but that does not mean that we are not here. It does not mean that nothing exists. A glass can be empty or full of tea, but in order to be either empty or full, the glass has to be there. So emptiness does not mean non-being, and it does not mean being either. It transcends all concepts. If you touch deeply the nature of impermanence, no self and inter-being, you touch the ultimate dimension, the nature of nirvana.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear