this that & the other.

“The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.”

“Relationships based on truth, which means a relationship that is free of dependency and demands, is a relationship centred upon celebration. It’s a mutual coming together for no other reason than being together.”

“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”

“Happiness is strange; it comes when you are not seeking it. When you are not making an effort to be happy, then unexpectedly, mysteriously, happiness is there, born of purity, of a loveliness of being.”

“There are more fake guides, teachers in the world than stars. The real guide is the one who makes you see your inner beauty, not the one who wants to be admired and followed.”

“Faith is a withholding of conclusion so that you allow what is to arise.”

“The highest education is that which does not merely give us information but makes our life in harmony with all existence.”

“It is odd that we have so little relationship with nature, with the insects and the leaping frog and the owl that hoots among the hills calling for its mate. We never seem to have a feeling for all living things on the earth. If we could establish a deep abiding relationship with nature we would never kill an animal for our appetite, we would never harm, vivisect, a monkey, a dog, a guinea pig for our benefit. We would find other ways to heal our wounds, heal our bodies. But the healing of the mind is something totally different. That healing gradually takes place if you are with nature, with that orange on the tree, and the blade of grass that pushes through the cement, and the hills covered, hidden, by the clouds.”

“One of my favourite definitions of enlightenment comes from a Jesuit priest named Anthony de Mello, who passed away some years ago. Someone asked him to define his experience of enlightenment. He said, “Enlightenment is absolute cooperation with the inevitable.” I love that, because it defines enlightenment not just as a realisation, but as an activity. Enlightenment is when everything within us is in cooperation with the flow of life itself, with the inevitable.”

“So when you are listening to somebody, completely, attentively, then you are listening not only to the words, but also to the feeling of what is being conveyed, to the whole of it, not part of it.”

“Much of the secret of life consists in knowing how to laugh, and also how to breathe.”

When the Buddha attained enlightenment at the foot of the Bodhi tree, he was a human being, and after his enlightenment, he was still a human being, with all the suffering and afflictions that having a human body entails. The Buddha was not made of stone. He experienced feelings and emotions, pain, cold, hunger, and fatigue, just like all of us. We shouldn’t think that because we experience the suffering and afflictions of being human, we cannot touch peace, we cannot touch nirvana. Even after his enlightenment, the Buddha experienced suffering. From his teachings and stories about his life, we know that he suffered. But the key point is that he knew how to suffer. His awakening came from suffering: he knew how to make good use of his afflictions in order to experience awakening. And because of this, he suffered much less than most of us.

“In order to be truly free, you must desire to know the truth more than you want to feel good. Because, if feeling good is your goal, then as soon as you feel better you will lose interest in what is true. This does not mean that feeling good or experiencing love and bliss is a bad thing. Given the choice, anyone would choose to feel bliss rather than sorrow. It simply means that if this desire to feel good is stronger than the yearning to see, know, and experience Truth, then this desire will always be distorting the perception of what is Real, while corrupting one’s deepest integrity.”

“What matters are not the truths other people tell us or the practices that we are able to mimic, but the spiritual discoveries we make through personal investigation.”

“We are experts at escalation, adding more kerosene to the fire. To de-escalate the cycle of suffering takes courage, because the urge to do what you always do is like a magnet. It’s pulling you down like the undertow. To hold your ground and be nonaggressive takes courage.”