#buddhism

When fear and suffering are disliked by me and others equally what is so special about me that I protect myself and not the other? ↗

— Śāntideva

#philosophy #equality

While the primary function of formal Buddhist meditation is to create the possibility of the experience of "being," my work as a therapist has shown me that the demands of intimate life can be just as useful as meditation in moving people toward this capacity. Just as in formal meditation, intimate relationships teach us that the more we relate to each other as objects, the greater our disappointment. The trick, as in meditation, is to use this disappointment to change the way we relate. ↗

— Mark Epstein

#desire #disappointment #meditation #objectification #relationships

It turned out this man worked for the Dalai Lama. And she said gently-that they believe when a lot of things start going wrong all at once, it is to protect something big and lovely that is trying to get itself born-and that this something needs for you to be distracted so that it can be born as perfectly as possible. ↗

— Anne Lamott

#buddhism #dalai-lama #inspiration #problems #faith

Amida's unimpeded light is the sun of wisdom that destroys the mind of darkness. (Preface in Teaching, Practice, Faith, Enlightenment) ↗

— Kentetsu Takamori

#inspiration #religious #faith

Mindfulness is the agent of our freedom. Through mindfulness we arrive at faith we grow in wisdom & we attain equanimity. ↗

— Sharon Salzberg

#compassion #love #mindfulness #faith

What makes human life--which is inseparable from this moment--so precious is its fleeting nature. And not that it doesn't last but that it never returns again. ↗

— Steve Hagen

#buddhism-is-not-what-you-think #steve-hagen #zen #freedom

...we're constantly waking up to what we're about, what we're really doing in our lives. And the fact is, that's painful. But there's no possibility of freedom without this pain. ↗

— Charlotte Joko Beck

#pain #realization #zen-buddhism #freedom

There are some among the so-called elite who are overbearing and arrogant. I want to foster leaders, not elitists. ↗

— Daisaku Ikeda

#elitism #leadership #leadership

If you want to take care of tomorrow, take better care of today. We always live now. All we have to do is entrust ourselves to the life we now live. ↗

— Dainin Katagiri

#life

Meditation did not relieve me of my anxiety so much as flesh it out. It took my anxious response to the world, about which I felt a lot of confusion and shame, and let me understand it more completely. Perhaps the best way to phrase it is to say that meditation showed me that the other side of anxiety is desire. They exist in relationship to each other, not independently. ↗

— Mark Epstein

#buddhism #desire #psychology #spirituality #life