unapologetically

“Understanding and Love are not two separate things, but only one. To develop understanding, you have to practice looking at all living beings with the eyes of compassion. When you understand, you cannot help but love. And when you love, you naturally act in a way that can relieve the suffering of people.”

All beliefs serve as self limitations and they’re all false.

The more you try to be positive, the more you will become negative. The nature of the mind is such that if you say, “I don’t want this,” only that will happen in your mind. Isn’t it so? Now, if you say, “I don’t want the negative,” only that will happen. Why are you talking about positive or negative at all? Why do you want to look at things this way? Why don’t you look at every situation the way it is, accept it the way it is, and see what is the best you can do about it? A situation is neither positive nor negative. Don’t try to develop attitudes and philosophies. Why can’t you just be here, without any specific attitude? Without any philosophy? Just aware. Simply aware. Every situation demands a different kind of response, isn’t it? If you develop attitudes of positive thinking or what not, it may work well in one situation. But in another kind of situation you will do stupid things, because you have a prejudiced idea that you have to be in a certain way.  If you go on thinking positive at the wrong place, the worst things may happen to you, isn’t it? So there is no need to be positive. There is no need to be negative, either. Just be aware. If you are aware, you will perceive a situation just the way it is. When you perceive a situation the way it is, you can act to the best of your intelligence and capability. It is as simple as that. Don’t get into prejudiced action.

Every human being, either consciously or unconsciously, through the process of what we call life, creates a certain image, a certain personality of himself. This image that you have created within yourselves has nothing to do with the reality. It has nothing to do with the self, your inner nature. It is a certain image that you have built, most of the time unconsciously. Everybody has some image of what they are. Very few human beings have built a conscious image of themselves. All others have built images according to whatever kind of patterns or external situations they fell into.

“One should use information and logic as a drunkard would use a lamp post, only for support, not for illumination.”

“The mind may accept or deny that you are awareness, but either way it can’t really understand. It cannot comprehend. Thought cannot comprehend what is beyond thought.”

Sometimes we think that to develop an open heart, to be truly loving and compassionate, means that we need to be passive, to allow others to abuse us, to smile and let anyone do what they want with us… Yet this is not what is meant by compassion. Quite the contrary…. Compassion is not at all weak. It is the strength that arises out of seeing the true nature of suffering in the world… Compassion allows us to bear witness to that suffering, whether it is in ourselves or others, without fear… it allows us to name injustice without hesitation, and to act strongly, with all the skill at our disposal. To develop this mind state of compassion is to learn to live…

Everything is on fire. The senses are on fire, of seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling. The mind is on fire with beliefs, opinions, fears, doubts, anxieties, and ignorance. The body is on fire with decay, pain, injury, sickness and death. Yet, I say to you Sangha, there is no need for panic. Indeed, panic is part of the delusion of samsara. Impermanence is a rule of form. What comes to be will also come to pass. Do not attempt to hold movement. Resting in awareness, the fires of samsara cannot burn you. It burns only what is untrue. See clearly, Sangha, and you will know that while you think you are burning with it, it is only the ego which burns. Rest in this fire of being. It will only destroy what is untrue. This fire is holy, it purifies. It will reveal the ego as false and your unnamed nature as what is.

Self-care is not selfish or self-indulgent. We cannot nurture others from a dry well. We need to take care of our own needs first, then we can give from our surplus, our abundance.