Week 2022-08: Sun Tzu - Collected Quotes

"A leader leads by example not by force." (Sun Tzu, "The Art of War", 5th century BC)

"After that, comes tactical maneuvering, than which there is nothing more difficult. The difficulty of tactical maneuvering consists in turning the devious into the direct, and misfortune into gain." (Sun Tzu, "The Art of War", 5th century BC)

"Again, if the campaign is protracted, the resources of the State will not be equal to the strain." (Sun Tzu, "The Art of War", 5th century BC)

"And if we are able thus to attack an inferior force with a superior one, our opponents will be in dire straits." (Sun Tzu, "The Art of War", 5th century BC)

"Fighting with a large army under your command is nowise different from fighting with a small one; it is merely a question of instituting signs and signals." (Sun Tzu, "The Art of War", 5th century BC)

"Gongs and drums, banners and flags, are means whereby the ears and eyes of the host may be focused on one particular point." (Sun Tzu, "The Art of War", 5th century BC)

"Having collected an army and concentrated his forces, he must blend and harmonize the different elements thereof before pitching his camp." (Sun Tzu, "The Art of War", 5th century BC)

"He will conquer who has learned the artifice of deviation. Such is the art of maneuvering." (Sun Tzu, "The Art of War", 5th century BC)

"He wins his battles by making no mistakes. Making no mistakes is what establishes the certainty of victory, for it means conquering an enemy that is already defeated." (Sun Tzu, "The Art of War", 5th century BC)

"Hence in the wise leader’s plans, considerations of advantage and disadvantage will be blended together." (Sun Tzu, "The Art of War", 5th century BC)

"If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle." (Sun Tzu, "The Art of War", 5th century BC)

"In all fighting, the direct method may be used for joining battle, but indirect methods will be needed in order to secure victory." (Sun Tzu, "The Art of War", 5th century BC)

"In respect of the military method, we have, firstly, Measurement; secondly, Estimation of quantity; thirdly, Calculation; fourthly Balancing of chances; fifthly, Victory." (Sun Tzu, "The Art of War", 5th century BC)

"In war, the general receives his command from the sovereign." (Sun Tzu, "The Art of War", 5th century BC)

"Knowing the place and the time of the coming battle, we may concentrate from the greatest distances in order to fight." (Sun Tzu, "The Art of War", 5th century BC)

"Knowing yourself and knowing your enemy clearly, you can win all the time." (Sun Tzu, "The Art of War", 5th century BC)

"Management of many is the same as management of few. It is a matter of organization." (Sun Tzu, "The Art of War", 5th century BC)

"Ponder and deliberate before you make a move." (Sun Tzu, "The Art of War", 5th century BC)

"So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak." (Sun Tzu, "The Art of War", 5th century BC)

"Success in warfare is gained by carefully accommodating ourselves to the enemy’s purpose." (Sun Tzu, "The Art of War", 5th century BC)

"The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy's not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable." (Sun Tzu, "The Art of War", 5th century BC)

"The natural formation of the country is the soldier’s best ally." (Sun Tzu, "The Art of War", 5th century BC)

"The skillful soldier does not raise a second levy, nor are his supply wagons loaded more than once." (Sun Tzu, "The Art of War", 5th century BC)

"There is no instance of a country having benefitted from prolonged warfare." (Sun Tzu, "The Art of War", 5th century BC)

"This is called, using the conquered foe to augment one’s own strength." (Sun Tzu, "The Art of War", 5th century BC)

"Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory." (Sun Tzu, "The Art of War", 5th century BC)

"Thus, though we have heard of stupid haste in war, cleverness has never been seen associated with long delays." (Sun Tzu, "The Art of War", 5th century BC)

"To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the highest skill. To subdue the enemy without righting is the highest skill." (Sun Tzu, "The Art of War", 5th century BC)

"We can form a single united body, while the enemy must split up into fractions. Hence there will be a whole pitted against separate parts of a whole, which means that we shall be many to the enemy’s few." (Sun Tzu, "The Art of War", 5th century BC)

"We cannot enter into alliances until we are acquainted with the designs of our neighbors." (Sun Tzu, "The Art of War", 5th century BC)

"We shall be unable to turn natural advantage to account unless we make use of local guides." (Sun Tzu, "The Art of War", 5th century BC)

"What the ancients called a clever fighter is one who not only wins, but excels in winning with ease." (Sun Tzu, "The Art of War", 5th century BC)

"When the general is weak and without authority; when his orders are not clear and distinct; when there are no fixed duties assigned to officers and men, and the ranks are formed in a slovenly haphazard manner, the result is utter disorganization." (Sun Tzu, "The Art of War", 5th century BC)

"Whether to concentrate or to divide your troops must be decided by circumstances." (Sun Tzu, "The Art of War", 5th century BC)

Week 2022-05: Gregory Bateson - Collected Quotes

"If a man achieves or suffers change in premises which are deeply embedded in his mind, he will surely find that the results of that change will ramify throughout his whole universe." (Gregory Bateson, "Steps to an Ecology of Mind", 1972)

"In no system which shows mental characteristics can any part have unilateral control over the whole. In other words, the mental characteristics of the system are imminent, not in some part, but in the system as a whole." (Gregory Bateson, "Steps to an Ecology of Mind", 1972)

"Still more astonishing is that world of rigorous fantasy we call mathematics." (Gregory Bateson, "Steps to an Ecology of Mind", 1972)

"We say the map is different from the territory. But what is the territory? Operationally, somebody went out with a retina or a measuring stick and made representations which were then put on paper. What is on the paper map is a representation of what was in the retinal representation of the man who made the map; and as you push the question back, what you find is an infinite regress, an infinite series of maps. The territory never gets in at all. […] Always, the process of representation will filter it out so that the mental world is only maps of maps, ad infinitum." (Gregory Bateson, "Steps to an Ecology of Mind", 1972)

"What we mean by information - the elementary unit of information - is a difference which makes a difference, and it is able to make a difference because the neural pathways along which it travels and is continually transformed are themselves provided with energy. The pathways are ready to be triggered. We may even say that the question is already implicit in them." (Gregory Bateson, "Steps to an Ecology of Mind", 1972)

"Information is any difference that makes a difference."(Gregory Bateson, "Mind and Nature: A necessary unity", 1979)

"Let's not pretend that mental phenomena can be mapped on to the characteristics of billiard balls." (Gregory Bateson, "Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity", 1979)

"The map is not the territory, and the name is not the thing named." (Gregory Bateson, "Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity", 1979)

"The world partly becomes - comes to be - how it is imagined." (Gregory Bateson, "Mind and Nature: A necessary unity", 1979)

Week 2022-04: Avicenna Latinus [Ibn Sina] - Collected Quotes

"Absence of understanding does not warrant absence of existence." (Avicenna Latinus [Ibn Sina]) 

"Anyone who denies the law of non-contradiction should be beaten and burned until he admits that to be beaten is not the same as not to be beaten, and to be burned is not the same as not to be burned." (Avicenna Latinus [Ibn Sina])

"Cultivate the self with learning in order to progress and leave all else; for knowledge is an abode of all things. 

The self is like glass, the knowledge, like a lamp, and the wisdom of God, like oil. 

When your self is illuminated - you are alive, and when there is darkness - you are dead." (Avicenna Latinus [Ibn Sina])

"Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity." (Avicenna Latinus [Ibn Sina])

"Further, this power which conceives these ideas does at times gain from sense forms mental, imaginative, and innate in (instinctive to) itself; and in such a case it does this in that it lays before itself the forms that are in the conceiving power and in the remembering (preserving) power, by employing the imaginative and the conjecturing power, and then contemplates them, and finds them to have participated in some forms and to have differed in some other forms; and finds some amongst the forms that are in these powers to be essential and others to be accidental." (Avicenna Latinus [Ibn Sina])

"God is knowledge; he is knowing; and he is being known. Since God has knowledge of his own essence, and since God is one, it follows that the essence of God is knowledge. And knowledge means that he knows himself, and is known by himself." (Avicenna Latinus [Ibn Sina], "al-Risalat al-Arshiya")

"It is evident that everything which does not exist at first and then exists, is determined by something other than itself." (Avicenna Latinus [Ibn Sina])

"Medicine deals with the states of health and disease in the human body. It is a truism of philosophy that a complete knowledge of a thing can only be obtained by elucidating its causes and antecedents, provided, of course, such causes exist. In medicine it is, therefore, necessary that causes of both health and disease should be determined." (Avicenna Latinus [Ibn Sina]) 

"Now it is established in the sciences that no knowledge is acquired save through the study of its causes and beginnings, if it has had causes and beginnings; nor completed except by knowledge of its accidents and accompanying essentials." (Avicenna Latinus [Ibn Sina]) 

"Pain is a sensation produced by something contrary to the course of nature and this sensation is set up by one of two circumstances: either a very sudden change of the temperament (or the bad effect of a contrary temperament) or a solution of continuity." (Avicenna Latinus [Ibn Sina]) 

"Prayer is that which enables the soul to realize its divinity. Through prayer human beings worship absolute truth, and seek an eternal reward. Prayer is the foundation-stone of religion; and religion is the means by which the soul is purified of all that pollutes it. Prayer is the worship of the first cause of all things, the supreme ruler of all the world, the source of all strength. Prayer is the adoration of the one whose being is necessary." (Avicenna Latinus [Ibn Sina], "Kitab al-Najat")

"The different sorts of madness are innumerable." (Avicenna Latinus [Ibn Sina]) 

"The mind (Understanding, Reason) is in fact and deed wholly and solely nothing else than the forms of mentally-grasped things, if these be arrayed in the very mind potentially, and through it they are brought out to effective action; and hence it is said that the mind is in fact and deed at once both understanding and understood. Amongst the properties of the understanding power is this, that it unifies the many and multiplies the one through analysis and synthesis. As to multiplication, it is such as the analysis of one man into essence, body, nourishment-getting, animal, speaking (rational). As to unification of the many, it is such as the composition (synthesis) of this one man out of essence, body, animal, speaking (rational) into one notion which is mankind (human being)."(Avicenna Latinus [Ibn Sina])

 

"The knowledge of anything, since all things have causes, is not acquired or complete unless it is known by its causes." (Avicenna Latinus [Ibn Sina]) 

"When knowledge reaches the specific natures and what is accidental to them, inquiry stops and is not followed by the fleeting knowledge of individuals to which our souls are not at all inclined." (Avicenna Latinus [Ibn Sina], "The Physics of The Healing", cca. 1014)

Week 2022-03: Paulo Coelho - Collected Quotes

"Teaching is only demonstrating that it is possible. Learning is making it possible for yourself." (Paulo Coelho, "The Pilgrimage", 1987)

"Everything on earth is being continuously transformed, because the earth is alive. and it has a soul. We are part of that soul, so we rarely recognize that it is working for us." (Paulo Coelho, "The Alchemist", 1988)

"It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting." (Paulo Coelho, "The Alchemist", 1988)

"People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don't deserve them, or that they'll be unable to achieve them. We, their hearts, become fearful just thinking of loved ones who go away forever, or of moments that could have been good but weren't, or of treasures that might have been found but were forever hidden in the sands. Because, when these things happen, we suffer terribly."(Paulo Coelho, "The Alchemist", 1988)

"When you cease doubting, you have stopped moving forward." (Paulo Coelho, "Brida", 1990)

"Life takes us by surprise and orders us to move toward the unknown - even when we don't want to and when we think we don't need to." (Paulo Coelho, "By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept", 1994)

"The spiritual path can only be traveled through the daily experience of love." (Paulo Coelho, "By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept", 1994)

"At every moment of our lives, we all have one foot in a fairy tale and the other in the abyss."(Paulo Coelho, "Eleven Minutes", 2003)

"Life always waits for some crisis to occur before revealing itself at its most brilliant." (Paulo Coelho, "Eleven Minutes", 2003)

"Love is not to be found in someone else, but in ourselves; we simply awaken it. But in order to do that, we need the other person." (Paulo Coelho, "Eleven Minutes", 2003)

"Everyone believes that the main aim in life is to follow a plan. They never ask if that plan is theirs or if it was created by another person. They accumulate experiences, memories, things, other people's ideas, and it is more than they can possibly cope with. And that is why they forget their dreams." (Paulo Coelho, "The Zahir: A Novel of Obsession", 2005)

"We humans have two great problems: the first is knowing when to begin; the second is knowing when to stop." (Paulo Coelho, "The Zahir: A Novel of Obsession", 2005)

"Everyone's looking for the perfect teacher, but although their teachings might be divine, teachers are all too human, and that's something people find hard to accept. Don't confuse the teacher with the lesson, the ritual with the ecstasy, the transmitter of the symbol with the symbol itself." (Paulo Coelho, "The Witch of Portobello: A Novel", 2006) 

"Everyone contributes a word, a sentence, an image, but in the end it all makes sense: the happiness of one becomes the joy of all."(Paulo Coelho, "Aleph", 2011)

"I understand that everything is connected, that all roads meet, and that all rivers flow into the same sea." (Paulo Coelho, "Aleph", 2011)

"If you want to see a rainbow you have to learn to see the rain." (Paulo Coelho, "Aleph", 2011)

"That is what marks out the warrior: the knowledge that willpower and courage are not the same thing. Courage can attract fear and adulation, but willpower requires patience and commitment. Men and women with immense willpower are generally solitary types and give off a kind of coolness. Many people mistakenly think that (they) are cold (people) when nothing could be further from the truth." (Paulo Coelho, "Aleph", 2011)

"Excessive caution destroys the soul and the heart, because living is an act of courage, and an act of courage is always an act of love." (Paulo Coelho, "Manuscript Found in Accra", 2012)

"Love rules, but no one knows where it has its throne; in order to know that secret place, you must first submit to Love." (Paulo Coelho, "Manuscript Found in Accra", 2012)

"Love transforms, Love heals. But sometimes it lays deadly traps and ends up destroying the person who decided to surrender himself completely." (Paulo Coelho, "Manuscript Found in Accra", 2012)

"The act of discovering who we are will force us to accept that we can go further than we think." (Paulo Coelho, "Manuscript Found in Accra", 2012)

"All battles in life serve to teach us something, even the battles we lose." (Paulo Coelho)

"Love is looking at the same mountains from different angles." (Paulo Coelho)

"The two hardest tests on the spiritual road are the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what we encounter." (Paulo Coelho)

Week 2022-02: Hermann Hesse - Collected Quotes

"During deep meditation it is possible to dispel time, to see simultaneously all the past, present, and future, and then everything is good, everything is perfect, everything is Brahman." (Hermann Hesse, "Siddhartha", 1910)

"Passion is always a mystery and unaccountable, and unfortunately there is no doubt that life does not spare its purest children and often it is just the most deserving people who cannot help loving those that destroy them." ("Hermann Hesse, "Gertrude", 1910)

"Every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world's phenomena intersect, only once in this way and never again." (Hermann Hesse, "Demian", 1919)

"Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it." (Hermann Hesse, "Siddhartha", 1922)

"Wisdom is not communicable. The wisdom which a wise man tries to communicate always sounds foolish... Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it." (Hermann Hesse, "Siddhartha", 1922)

"All existence seemed to be based on duality, on contrast." (Hermann Hesse, "Narcissus and Goldmund", 1930)

"All interpretation, all psychology, all attempts to make things comprehensible, require the medium of theories, mythologies, and lies." (Hermann Hesse)

"Chaos demands to be recognized and experienced before letting itself be converted into a new order." (Hermann Hesse)

"It is not our purpose to become each other; it is to recognize each other, to learn to see the other and honor him for what he is." (Hermann Hesse)

"Our mind is capable of passing beyond the dividing line we have drawn for it. Beyond the pairs of opposites of which the world consists, other, new insights begin." (Hermann Hesse)

"Seeking means to have a goal; but finding means to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal. You, O worthy one, are perhaps indeed a seeker, for in striving towards your goal, you do not see many things that are under your nose." (Hermann Hesse)

"Some of us think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go." (Herman Hesse)

"There is no reality except the one contained within us." (Herman Hesse)

"Whither will my path yet lead me? This path is stupid, it goes in spirals, perhaps in circles, but whichever way it goes, I will follow it." (Hermann Hesse)

"Within you there is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time." (Hermann Hesse)

Week 2021-52: Osho [Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh] - Collected Quotes

"A single word from you will show the mind inside; a single word and your whole being is exposed. Not even a word is needed; just a gesture and your chattering mind will be there. Even if you are silent, your silence will not reveal anything other than the chattering monkey within." (Osho, "Hsin Hsin Ming: The Book of Nothing", [talks] 1974)

"The mind cannot be healthy because it can never be whole. Mind is always divided; division is its base." (Osho, "Hsin Hsin Ming: The Book of Nothing", [talks] 1974)

"Tantra says there is nobody above you whom you have to follow, through whom you have to get your pattern." (Osho [Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh], "Tantra: the Supreme Understanding", 1975)

"Mindfulness is Buddha's word for meditation. By mindfulness he means: you should always remain alert, watchful. You should always remain present. Not a single thing should be done in a sort of sleepy state of mind. You should not move like a somnambulist, you should move with a sharp consciousness." (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, "The Discipline of Transcendence: Discourses on the Forty-two Sutras of Buddha", 1978)

"One has to reach to the absolute state of awareness: that is Zen. You cannot do it every morning for a few minutes or for half an hour and then forget all about it. It has to become like your heartbeat. You have to sit in it, you have to walk in it. Yes, you have even to sleep in it." (Osho [Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh], "Walking in Zen, Sitting in Zen", 1982)

"All the Buddhas of all the ages have been telling you a very simple fact: Be - don't try to become. Within these two words - being and becoming, your whole life is contained. Being is enlightenment, becoming is ignorance." (Osho [Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh], "The Book of Wisdom", 1983)

"Remain in wonder if you want mysteries to open up for you. Mysteries never open up for those who go on questioning. Questioners sooner or later end up in a library. They end up with scriptures, because scriptures are full of answers. And answers are dangerous, they kill your wonder." (Osho [Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh], "The Book of Wisdom", 1983)

"Enlightenment is always through surrender, but surrender is achieved through intelligence. Only idiots cannot surrender. To surrender you need great intelligence. To see the point of surrender is the climax of insight; to see the point that you are not separate from existence is the highest that intelligence can give to you." (Osho [Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh], "From I to Q", 1984)

"Thinking goes on in your head. It is not really deep into the roots of your being; it is not your totality." (Osho [Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh], "From R to Z", 1984)

"When you really laugh, for those few moments you are in a deep meditative state. Thinking stops. It is impossible to laugh and think together... If you are still thinking. laughter will be just so-so... It will be a crippled laughter." (Osho [Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh], "From I to Q", 1984)

"Meditation is the awareness that I am not the mind." (Osho)

"Meditation is nothing but an effort to look at reality without the thinking mind - because that is the only way to see reality. If thinking is there it distorts, it corrupts. Drop the thinking mind and see reality - direct, immediate, face to face. And then there is no problem." (Osho)

"Sadness gives depth. Happiness gives height. Sadness gives roots. Happiness gives branches. Happiness is like a tree going into the sky, and sadness is like the roots going down into the womb of the earth. Both are needed, and the higher a tree goes, the deeper it goes, simultaneously. The bigger the tree, the bigger will be its roots. In fact, it is always in proportion. That's its balance." (Osho)

"Suffering is a challenge; when you suffer you are challenged, when there is a problem you are challenged. When you encounter the problem, only then do you grow. More insecurity, more growth; more security, less growth. If everything is secure around you, you are already in your grave, you are no longer alive. Life exists in danger, life always exists in the possibility of going astray. But one who goes astray can come back, one who fails can succeed." (Osho)

"When mind knows, we call it knowledge. When heart knows, we call it love. And when being knows, we call it meditation." (Osho)

Week 2021-51: Anthony de Mello - Collected Quotes

"A good teacher offers practice, a bad one offers theories." (Anthony de Mello, "One Minute Wisdom", 1988)

"All suffering comes from a person's inability to sit still and be alone." (Anthony de Mello, "One Minute Wisdom", 1988)

"People who deliberate fully before they take a step will spend their lives on one leg." (Anthony de Mello, "One Minute Wisdom", 1988)

"Thought can organize the world so well that you are no longer able to see it." (Anthony de Mello, "One Minute Wisdom", 1988)

"Wisdom tends to grow in proportion to one's awareness of one's ignorance." (Anthony de Mello, "One Minute Wisdom", 1988)

"Spirituality practiced in the state of activity is incomparably superior to that practiced in a state of withdrawal." (Anthony de Mello, "One Minute Wisdom", 1988)

"You can read books without ever stepping into a library; and practice spirituality without ever going to a temple." (Anthony de Mello, " One Minute Wisdom", 1988)

"Drop your false ideas. See through people. If you see through yourself, you will see through everyone. Then you will love them. Otherwise you spend the whole time grappling with your wrong notions of them, with your illusions that are constantly crashing against reality." (Anthony de Mello, "Awareness: Conversations with the Masters", 1990)

"Happiness is our natural state. Happiness is the natural state of little children, to whom the kingdom belongs until they have been polluted and contaminated by the stupidity of society and culture." (Anthony de Mello, "Awareness: Conversations with the Masters", 1990)

"Nobody is afraid of the unknown, what you really fear is the loss of the known." (Anthony de Mello, "Awareness: Conversations with the Masters", 1990)

"Ordinarily, everything we do is in our self-interest. Everything." (Anthony de Mello, "Awareness: Conversations with the Masters", 1990)

"Pleasant experiences make life delightful. Painful experiences lead to growth." (Anthony de Mello, "Awareness: Conversations with the Masters", 1990)

"The three most difficult things for a human being are not physical feats or intellectual achievements. They are, first, returning love for hate; second, including the excluded; third, admitting that you are wrong." (Anthony de Mello, "Awareness: Conversations with the Masters", 1990)

"There's only one reason why you're not experiencing bliss at this present moment, and it's because you're thinking or focusing on what you don't have. [...] But, right now you have everything you need to be in bliss." (Anthony de Mello, "Awareness: Conversations with the Masters", 1990)

"Understand the obstructions you are putting in the way of love, freedom, and happiness and they will drop. Turn on the light of awareness and the darkness will disappear. Happiness is not something you acquire; love is not something you produce; love is not something you have; love is something that has you." (Anthony de Mello, "Awareness: Conversations with the Masters", 1990)

"What is a loving heart? A loving heart is sensitive to the whole of life, to all persons; a loving heart doesn't harden itself to any persons or things." (Anthony de Mello, "Awareness: Conversations with the Masters", 1990)

"You are never in love with anyone. You're only in love with your prejudiced and hopeful idea of that person." (Anthony de Mello, "Awareness: Conversations with the Masters", 1990)

"Mostly the discontent that you feel comes from not having enough of something - you are dissatisfied because you think you do not have enough money or power or success or fame or virtue or love or holiness. This is not the discontent that leads to the joy of the kingdom. Its source is greed and ambition and its fruit is restlessness and frustration. The day you are discontented not because you want more of something but without knowing what it is you want; when you are sick at heart of everything you are pursuing so far and you are sick of the pursuing itself, then your heart will attain a great clarity, an insight that will cause you mysteriously to delight in everything and in nothing." (Anthony de Mello, "The Way to Love", 1995)

"The tragedy of an attachment is that if its object is not attained it causes unhappiness. But if it is attained, it does not cause happiness – it merely causes a flash of pleasure followed by weariness, and it is always accompanied, of course, by the anxiety that you may lose the object of your attachment." (Anthony de Mello, "The Way to Love", 1995)

"Understand your darkness and it will vanish; then you will know what light is. Understand your nightmare for what it is and it will stop; then you will wake up to reality. Understand your false beliefs and they will drop; then you will know the taste of happiness." (Anthony de Mello, "The Way to Love", 1995)

"To relate is to react. To react is to understand oneself. To understand oneself is to be enlightened. Relationships are schools for enlightenment." (Anthony de Mello, "Heart of the Enlightened: A Book of Story Meditations", 1997)

"A nice definition of an awakened person: a person who no longer marches to the drums of society, a person who dances to the tune of the music that springs up from within." (Anthony de Mello, "Anthony De Mello: Writings", 1999) 

"Most people don't live aware lives. They live mechanical lives, mechanical thoughts - generally somebody else's - mechanical emotions, mechanical actions, mechanical reactions." (Anthony de Mello, "Anthony De Mello: Writings", 1999) 

"The only way someone can be of help to you is in challenging your ideas. If you're ready to listen and if you're ready to be challenged, there's one thing that you can do, but no one can help you. What is this most important thing of all? It's called self-observation." (Anthony de Mello, "Anthony De Mello: Writings", 1999) 

"This is what is ultimate in our human knowledge of God, to know that we do not know." (Anthony de Mello, "Anthony De Mello: Writings", 1999)

"No one is exempt from talking nonsense. The great misfortune is to do it solemnly." (Anthony de Mello, "One Minute Nonsense", 2003)

"To those who seek to protect their ego true Peace brings only disturbance." (Anthony de Mello, "One Minute Nonsense", 2003)

"Sin is a refusal to grow, a refusal to love, a refusal to get committed, to be concerned, and to take risks." (Anthony de Mello, "Seek God Everywhere: Reflections on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius", 2010)

Week 2021-50: Jack Kornfield - Collected Quotes

"Anger shows us precisely where we are stuck, where our limits are, where we cling to beliefs and fears." (Jack Kornfield & Joseph Goldstein, "Seeking the Heart of Wisdom: The Path of Insight Meditation", 1987)

"Compassion for ourselves gives rise to the power to transform resentment into forgiveness, hatred into friendliness, and fear into respect for all beings." (Jack Kornfield & Joseph Goldstein, "Seeking the Heart of Wisdom: The Path of Insight Meditation", 1987)

"The first level of practice is illuminated by the qualities of courage and renunciation." (Jack Kornfield & Joseph Goldstein, "Seeking the Heart of Wisdom: The Path of Insight Meditation", 1987)

"Meditation is a vehicle for opening to the truth of this impermanence on deeper and deeper levels." (Jack Kornfield & Joseph Goldstein, "Seeking the Heart of Wisdom: The Path of Insight Meditation", 1987)

"No amount of meditation, yoga, diet, and reflection will make all of our problems go away, but we can transform our difficulties into our practice until little by little they guide us on our way." (Jack Kornfield & Joseph Goldstein, "Seeking the Heart of Wisdom: The Path of Insight Meditation", 1987)

"The near enemy of love is attachment. Attachment masquerades as love. It says, I will love this person because I need them. Or, I'll love you if you'll love me back. I'll love you, but only if you will be the way I want. This isn't love at all - it is attachment - and attachment is rigid, it is very different from love." (Jack Kornfield & Joseph Goldstein, "Seeking the Heart of Wisdom: The Path of Insight Meditation", 1987)

"The path of awakening begins with a step the Buddha called right understanding." (Jack Kornfield & Joseph Goldstein, "Seeking the Heart of Wisdom: The Path of Insight Meditation", 1987)

"The willingness to empty ourselves and then seek our true nature is an expression of great and courageous love." (Jack Kornfield & Joseph Goldstein, "Seeking the Heart of Wisdom: The Path of Insight Meditation", 1987)

"To live fully is to let go and die with each passing moment, and to be reborn in each new one."  (Jack Kornfield & Joseph Goldstein, "Seeking the Heart of Wisdom: The Path of Insight Meditation", 1987)

"To understand ourselves and our life is the point of insight meditation: to understand and to be free." (Jack Kornfield & Joseph Goldstein, "Seeking the Heart of Wisdom: The Path of Insight Meditation", 1987)

"Two qualities are at the root of all meditation development: right effort and right aim—arousing effort to aim the mind toward the object." (Jack Kornfield, "Seeking the Heart of Wisdom: The Path of Insight Meditation", 1987)

"We need a warrior's heart that lets us face our lives directly, our pains and limitations, our joys and possibilities." (Jack Kornfield, "Seeking the Heart of Wisdom: The Path of Insight Meditation", 1987)

"Breathing meditation can quiet the mind, open the body, and develop a great power of concentration." (Jack Kornfield, "A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life", 1993)

"Compassion for ourselves gives rise to the power to transform resentment into forgiveness, hatred into friendliness, and fear into respect for all beings." (Jack Kornfield, "A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life", 1993)

"Even the most exalted states and the most exceptional spiritual accomplishments are unimportant if we cannot be happy in the most basic and ordinary ways, if we cannot touch one another and the life we have been given with our hearts." (Jack Kornfield, "A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life", 1993)

"For most of us, generosity is a quality that must be developed. We have to respect that it will grow gradually; otherwise our spirituality can become idealistic and imitative, acting out the image of generosity before it has become genuine." (Jack Kornfield, "A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life", 1993)

"It is possible to speak with our heart directly. Most ancient cultures know this. We can actually converse with our heart as if it were a good friend. In modern life we have become so busy with our daily affairs and thoughts that we have lost this essential art of taking time to converse with our heart." (Jack Kornfield, "A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life", 1993)

"Most of us have spent our lives caught up in plans, expectations, ambitions for the future; in regrets, guilt or shame about the past. To come into the present is to stop the war." (Jack Kornfield, "A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life", 1993)

"Only in the reality of the present can we love, can we awaken, can we find peace and understanding and connection with ourselves and the world." (Jack Kornfield, "A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life", 1993)

"Religion and philosophy have their value, but in the end all we can do is open to mystery and live a path with heart." (Jack Kornfield, "A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life", 1993)

"The basic principle of spiritual life is that our problems become the very place to discover wisdom and love." (Jack Kornfield, "A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life", 1993)

"To learn to concentrate we must choose a prayer or meditation and follow this path with commitment and steadiness, a willingness to work with our practice day after day, no matter what arises." (Jack Kornfield, "A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life", 1993)

"To live life is to make a succession of errors. Understanding this can bring us great ease and forgiveness for ourselves and others." (Jack Kornfield, "A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life", 1993)

"We are awakened to the profound realization that the true path to liberation is to let go of everything." (Jack Kornfield, "A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life", 1993)

"We must look at ourselves over and over again in order to learn to love, to discover what has kept our hearts closed, and what it means to allow our hearts to open." (Jack Kornfield, "A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life", 1993)

"When we struggle to change ourselves we, in fact, only continue the patterns of self-judgement and aggression. We keep the war against ourselves alive." (Jack Kornfield, "A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life", 1993)

"There are many good forms of meditation practice. A good meditation practice is any one that develops awareness or mindfulness of our body and our sense, of our mind and heart." (Jack Kornfield, "Meditation for Beginners", 1998)

"To meditate is to discover new possibilities, to awaken the capacities of us has to live more wisely, more lovingly, more compassionately, and more fully." (Jack Kornfield, "Meditation for Beginners", 1998)

"When we take time to quiet ourselves, we can all sense that our life could be lived with greater compassion and greater weakness." (Jack Kornfield, "Meditation for Beginners", 1998)

"An honorable spiritual practice recognizes the losses we have suffered, tells our story, and sheds our tears to free us from the past." (Jack Kornfield, "After the Ecstasy, The Laundry", 2000)

"In all practices and traditions of freedom, we find the heart's task to be quite simple. Life offers us just what it offers, and our task is to bow to it, to meet it with understanding and compassion." (Jack Kornfield, "After the Ecstasy, The Laundry", 2000)

"When our identity expands to include everything, we find a peace with the dance of the world. The ocean of life rises and falls within us - birth and death, joy and pain, it is all ours, and our heart is full and empty, large enough to embrace it all." (Jack Kornfield, "After the Ecstasy, The Laundry", 2000)

"Do not doubt your own basic goodness. In spite of all confusion and fear, you are born with a heart that knows what is just, loving, and beautiful." (Jack Kornfield, "The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness, and Peace", 2002)

"Indifference pretends to create peace, but it is based on not caring, a silent resignation. It is a movement away, a separation fed by a subtle fear of the heart. We pull back, believing that what happens to others is not our concern. Our courage leaves us. Indifference is a misguided way of defending ourselves." (Jack Kornfield, "The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness, and Peace", 2002)

"Letting go is not the same as aversion, struggling to get rid of something. We cannot genuinely let go of what we resist. What we resist and fear secretly follows us even as we push it away. To let go of fear or trauma, we need to acknowledge just how it is. We need to feel it fully and accept that it is so. It is as it is. Letting go begins with letting be." (Jack Kornfield, "The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness, and Peace", 2002)

"Love creates a communion with life. Love expands us, connects us, sweetens us, ennobles us. Love springs up in tender concern, it blossoms into caring action. It makes beauty out of all we touch. In any moment we can step beyond our small self and embrace each other as beloved parts of a whole." (Jack Kornfield, "The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness, and Peace", 2002)

"Love is based on our capacity to trust in a reality beyond fear, to trust a timeless truth bigger than all our difficulties." (Jack Kornfield, "The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness, and Peace", 2002)

"The knowledge of the past stays with us. To let go is to release the images and emotions, the grudges and fears, the clingings and disappointments of the past that bind our spirit." (Jack Kornfield, "The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness, and Peace", 2002)

"Most people discover that when hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with their own pain." (Jack Kornfield, "The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology", 2008)

"What is truly a part of our spiritual path is that which brings us alive. If gardening brings us alive, that is part of our path, if it is music, if it is conversation [...] we must follow what brings us alive." (Jack Kornfield, "The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology", 2008)

"Forgiveness does not mean that we have to continue to relate to those who have done us harm. In some cases the best practice may be to end our connection, to never speak to or be with a harmful person again. Sometimes in the process of forgiveness a person who hurts or betrayed us may wish to make amends, but even this does not require us to put ourselves in the way of further harm." (Jack Kornfield, "Bringing Home the Dharma: Awakening Right Where You Are", 2011)

Week 2021-49: Leo Buscaglia - Collected Quotes

"Change is the end result of all true learning. Change involves three things: First, a dissatisfaction with self - a felt void or need; second, a decision to change to fill the void or need; and third, a conscious dedication to the process of growth and change - the willful act of making the change, doing something." (Leo Buscaglia, "Love", 1972)

"Education should be the process of helping everyone to discover his uniqueness." (Leo Buscaglia, "Love", 1972)

"If one wishes to know love, one must live love, in action. Thoughts, readings and discourse on love are of value only as they present questions to be acted upon." (Leo Buscaglia, "Love", 1972)

"If you want to learn to love, then you must start the process of finding out what it is, what qualities make up a loving person and how these are developed. Each person has the potential for love. But potential is never realized without work." (Leo Buscaglia, "Love", 1972)

"Knowing that one is always capable of change, the second step lies in making the decision to change. Change does not occur by merely willing it anymore than behavior changes simply through insight." (Leo Buscaglia, "Love", 1972)

"Love and the self are one and the discovery of either is the realization of both." (Leo Buscaglia, "Love", 1972)

"Love is a dynamic interaction, lived every second of our lives, all of our lives." (Leo Buscaglia, "Love", 1972)

"Love is like a mirror. When you love another you become his mirror and he becomes yours. [...] And reflecting each other's love you see infinity." (Leo Buscaglia, "Love", 1972)

"Love revels in and grows in the moment and the joy of the moment." (Leo Buscaglia, "Love", 1972)

"Man seldom questions the fact that ugliness and evil are to be found in the world. But he's never as ready to accept that life also offers unlimited beauty and potential for joy as well as endless opportunities for pleasure." (Leo Buscaglia, "Love", 1972)

"One cannot give what he does not possess. To give love you must possess love. To love others you must love yourself." (Leo Buscaglia, "Love", 1972)

"To live in love is life's greatest challenge. It requires more subtlety, flexibility, sensitivity, understanding, acceptance, tolerance, knowledge and strength than any other human endeavor." (Leo Buscaglia, "Love", 1972)

"To love oneself is to struggle to rediscover and maintain your uniqueness. It is understanding and appreciating the idea that you will be the only you to ever live upon this earth, that when you die so will all of your fantastic possibilities. It is the realization that even you are not totally aware of the wonders which lie dormant within yourself." (Leo Buscaglia, "Love", 1972)

"To the extent to which you know yourself, and we are all more alike than different, you can know others. When you love yourself, you will love others. And to the depth and extent to which you can love yourself, only to that depth and extent will you be able to love others." (Leo Buscaglia, "Love", 1972)

"We need not be afraid to touch, to feel, to show emotion. The easiest thing in the world is to be what you are, what you feel. The hardest thing to be is what other people want you to be. Don't let them put you in that position." (Leo Buscaglia, "Love", 1972)

"Happiness comes only when we push our brains and hearts to the farthest reaches of which we are capable. The purpose of life is to matter-to count, to stand for something, to have it make so difference that we lived at all." (Leo Buscaglia, "Living Loving and Learning", 1982)

"The essence of education is not to stuff you with facts but to help you discover your uniqueness, to teach you how to develop it, and then to show you how to give it away." (Leo Buscaglia, "Living Loving and Learning", 1982)

"The most important thing in the world is that you make yourself a loving person, because this is what you will be giving away [...]" (Leo Buscaglia, "Living Loving and Learning", 1982)

"The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn and feel and change and grow and love and live." (Leo Buscaglia, "Living Loving and Learning", 1982)

"To love is to risk not being loved in return. To hope is to risk pain. To try is to risk failure, but risks must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing." (Leo Buscaglia, "Living Loving and Learning", 1982)

"Never idealize others. They will never live up to your expectations. Don't over-analyze your relationships. Stop playing games. A growing relationship can only be nurtured by genuineness." (Leo Buscaglia, "Loving Each Other: The Challenge of Human Relationships", 1984)

"Life is our greatest possession and love its greatest affirmation." (Leo Buscaglia, "Born for Love: Reflections on Loving", 1992)

"We are born for love, but it will die if not nurtured." (Leo Buscaglia, [interview] 1998)

"We can ask ourselves daily what we have done to make the world a better place, to make someone smile, to help someone to feel more secure, etc. It's the simple things which have the greatest effect. We must never underestimate the strength of a smile or act of kindness." (Leo Buscaglia, [interview] 1998)

Week 2021-48: Edward de Bono - Collected Quotes

"Once a new idea springs into existence, it cannot be unthought. There is a sense of immortality in a new idea." (Edward de Bono, "New Think: The Use of Lateral Thinking in the Generation of New Ideas", 1967)

"Pouncing on an idea as soon as it appears kills the idea. Too early and too enthusiastic logical attention either freezes the idea or forces it into the old moulds. Concentration on an idea isolates it from its surroundings and arrests its growth. The glare of attention inhibits the fertile semi-conscious processes that go to develop an idea." (Edward de Bono, "New Think: The Use of Lateral Thinking in the Generation of New Ideas", 1967)

"Sometimes the situation is only a problem because it is looked at in a certain way. Looked at in another way, the right course of action may be so obvious that the problem no longer exists." (Edward de Bono, "The use of lateral thinking", 1967)

"Design is really a special case of problem solving. One wants to bring about a desired state of affairs. Occasionally one wants to remedy some fault but more usually one wants to bring about something new. For that reason design is more open ended than problem solving. It requires more creativity. It is not so much a matter of linking up a clearly defined objective with a clearly defined starting position (as in problem solving) but more a matter of starting out from a general position in the direction of a general objective." (Edward de Bono, "Lateral Thinking: Creativity Step by Step", 1970)

"Everyone has the right to doubt everything as often as he pleases and the duty to do it at least once. No way of looking at things is too sacred to be reconsidered. No way of doing things is beyond improvement." (Edward de Bono, "Lateral Thinking: Creativity Step by Step", 1970)

"It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all." (Edward de Bono, "Lateral Thinking: Creativity Step by Step", 1970)

"Lateral thinking [...] is the process of using information to bring about creativity and insight restructuring. Lateral thinking can be learned, practised and used. It is possible to acquire skill in it just as it is possible to acquire skill in mathematics." (Edward de Bono, "Lateral Thinking: Creativity Step by Step", 1970)

"Rightness is what matters in vertical thinking. Richness is what matters in lateral thinking. Vertical thinking selects a pathway by excluding other pathways. Lateral thinking does not select but seeks to open up other pathways. With vertical thinking one selects the most promising approach to a problem, the best way of looking at a situation. With lateral thinking one generates as many alternative approaches as one can." (Edward de Bono, "Lateral Thinking: Creativity Step by Step", 1970)

"Vertical thinking is selection by exclusion. One works within a frame of reference and throws out what is not relevant. With lateral thinking one realizes that a pattern cannot be restructured from within itself but only as the result of some outside influence. So one welcomes outside influences for their provocative action. The more irrelevant such influences are the more chance there is of altering the established pattern. To look only for things that are relevant means perpetuating the current pattern." (Edward de Bono, "Lateral Thinking: Creativity Step by Step", 1970)

"With vertical thinking one may look for different approaches until one finds a promising one. With lateral thinking one goes on generating as many approaches as one can even after one has found a promising one. With vertical thinking one is trying to select the best approach but with lateral thinking one is generating different approaches for the sake of generating them." (Edward de Bono, "Lateral Thinking: Creativity Step by Step", 1970)

"Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way." (Edward de Bono, "Lateral Thinking for Management: A handbook", 1971)

"A myth is a fixed way of looking at the world which cannot be destroyed because, looked at through the myth, all evidence supports the myth." (Edward de Bono, "Po: A device for successful thinking", 1972)

"Every valuable creative idea must always be logical in hindsight. If it were not, we would never be able to see its value." (Edward de Bono, "I Am Right, You are Wrong", 1990)

"Maybe the social value of truth is as a destination - so long as we do not assume we have arrived there." (Edward de Bono, "I Am Right, You are Wrong", 1990)

"Analysis is simplifying, breaking down things into parts, picking out strands and elements. Analysis is comparing unknown things with things that are known. Analysis also involves picking out relationships and putting them back together as a whole." (Edward de Bono, "Sur/Petition: Creating Value Monopolies When Everyone Else Is Merely Competing", 1992)

"A discussion should be a genuine attempt to explore a subject rather than a battle between competing egos." (Edward de Bono, "How To Have A Beautiful Mind", 2004)

Week 2021-46: Kevin Michel - Collected Quotes

 "Achieve complete clarity as to what you intend to achieve, and develop a real 'knowing' of exactly where you would like to be in your life." (Kevin Michel, "Moving Through Parallel Worlds to Achieve Your Dreams", 2013)

"Every conscious thought you have, every moment you spend on an idea, is a commitment to be stuck with that idea and with aspects of that level of thinking, for the rest of your life. Spending just 10 seconds focusing on a topic that does not serve your interests is to invest your energy along a path that will continue to draw from you and define you." (Kevin Michel, "Moving Through Parallel Worlds to Achieve Your Dreams", 2013)

"Every hour of your life that ticks by, there are numerous points and moments when you can choose to pause - and be aware of your mental and physical state. At any given point, you can freeze the flow that is your life, and be fully conscious for a moment." (Kevin Michel, "Moving Through Parallel Worlds to Achieve Your Dreams", 2013)

"It is well understood in psychology that the subconscious mind has the dominant influence on human decision making, and therefore the pivotal role of the subconscious, for you to achieve success, is inescapable." (Kevin Michel, "Moving Through Parallel Worlds to Achieve Your Dreams", 2013)

"Our consciousness and awareness, which includes our choices as to where we place our focus, alters the paths of our lives, and creates a split in reality, leading to the creation of two or more worlds at any moment in time." (Kevin Michel, "Moving Through Parallel Worlds to Achieve Your Dreams", 2013)

"Physical reality does not require that we be pleased with its mechanism; we must see the implications of a theory for what they are and not for what we would like them to be." (Kevin Michel, "Moving Through Parallel Worlds to Achieve Your Dreams", 2013)

"Small shifts in your thinking, and small changes in your energy, can lead to massive alterations of your end result." (Kevin Michel, "Moving Through Parallel Worlds to Achieve Your Dreams", 2013)

"The subconscious mind is shielding or showing numerous potential paths, based on what it determines would represent a consistent reality for you." (Kevin Michel, "Moving Through Parallel Worlds to Achieve Your Dreams", 2013)

"To strengthen the connection between your conscious mind and your subconscious mind is to gain access to a map and compass to help you move towards your dream. To gain access to the subconscious mind is to gain the ability to see and create the future, the ability to shift the present, and the ability to alter your own perceptions of the past." (Kevin Michel, "Moving Through Parallel Worlds to Achieve Your Dreams", 2013)

Week 2021-45: Joseph O'Connor - Collected Quotes

 "Any single person's viewpoint will have blind spots caused by their habitual ways of perceiving the world, their perceptual filters [...] How can we shift our perceptions to get outside our own limited world view?" (Joseph O'Connor & John Seymour, "Introducing Neuro-Linguistic Programming: Psychological Skills for Understanding and Influencing People", 1990)

"Emotions make excellent servants, but tyrannical masters." (Joseph O'Connor & John Seymour, "Introducing Neuro-Linguistic Programming: Psychological Skills for Understanding and Influencing People", 1990)

"Free your expectation of the future from the grip of past failure." (Joseph O'Connor & John Seymour, "Introducing Neuro-Linguistic Programming: Psychological Skills for Understanding and Influencing People", 1990)

"If you go through the world looking for excellence, you will find excellence. If you go through the world looking for problems you will find problems." (Joseph O'Connor & John Seymour, "Introducing Neuro-Linguistic Programming: Psychological Skills for Understanding and Influencing People", 1990)

"Once a response becomes a habit, you stop learning. Theoretically, you could act differently, but in practice you do not. Habits are extremely useful, they streamline the parts of our lives we do not want to think about. [...] But there is an art to deciding what parts of your life you want to turn over to habit, and what parts of your life you want to continue to learn from and have choice about. This is a key question of balance." (Joseph O'Connor & John Seymour, "Introducing Neuro-Linguistic Programming: Psychological Skills for Understanding and Influencing People", 1990)

"Questions are also interventions. A good question can take a person's mind in a completely new direction and change his life. For example, ask yourself frequently, 'What is the most useful question to ask now?" (Joseph O'Connor & John Seymour, "Introducing Neuro-Linguistic Programming: Psychological Skills for Understanding and Influencing People", 1990)

"The best way to find out what you are capable of is to pretend you can do it. Act 'as if' you can. What you can't do, you won't. If it really is impossible, don't worry, you'll find that out. (And be sure to set up appropriate safety measures if necessary.) As long as you believe it is impossible, you will actually never find out if it is possible or not." (Joseph O'Connor & John Seymour, "Introducing Neuro-Linguistic Programming: Psychological Skills for Understanding and Influencing People", 1990)

"True learning involves learning other ways of doing what you can do already." (Joseph O'Connor & John Seymour, "Introducing Neuro-Linguistic Programming: Psychological Skills for Understanding and Influencing People", 1990)

"We all have beliefs and expectations from our personal experience; it is impossible to live without them. Since we have to make some assumptions, they might as well be ones that allow us freedom, choice and fun in the world, rather than ones that limit us. You often get what you expect to get." (Joseph O'Connor & John Seymour, "Introducing Neuro-Linguistic Programming: Psychological Skills for Understanding and Influencing People", 1990)

"When we believe something, we act as if it is true." (Joseph O'Connor & John Seymour, "Introducing Neuro-Linguistic Programming: Psychological Skills for Understanding and Influencing People", 1990)

"Words are anchors for sense experience, but the experience is not the reality, and the word is not the experience. Language is thus two removes from reality. To argue about the real meaning of a word is rather like arguing that one menu tastes better than another because you prefer the food that is printed on it. [...] To come to believe that the external world is patterned by the way we talk about it is even worse than eating the menu - it is eating the printing ink on the menu. Words can be combined and manipulated in ways that have nothing to do with sensory experience." (Joseph O'Connor & John Seymour, "Introducing Neuro-Linguistic Programming: Psychological Skills for Understanding and Influencing People", 1990)

Week 2021-44: Jianzhi Sengcan - Collected Quotes

"Do not search for the truth; Only cease to cherish opinions." (Jianzhi Sengcan)

"Do not try to drive pain away by pretending it is not real. If you seek serenity in oneness, pain will vanish of its own accord." (Jianzhi Sengcan)

"For the unified mind in accord with the Way all self-centered striving ceases. Doubts and irresolutions vanish and life in true faith is possible. With a single stroke we are freed from bondage; nothing clings to us and we hold nothing. All is empty, clear, self-illuminating, with no exertion of the mind's power." (Jianzhi Sengcan)

"If you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against." (Jianzhi Sengcan)

"If you want to realize the truth, don't be for or against. The struggle between good and evil is the primal disease of the mind." (Jianzhi Sengcan)

"In the 'Not Two' are no separate things, yet all things are included." (Jianzhi Sengcan)

"In the World of Reality there is no self, There is no other-than-self." (Jianzhi Sengcan)

"One thing, all things: move among and intermingle, without distinction. To live in this realization is to be without anxiety about non-perfection. To live in this faith is the road to non-duality, because the non-dual is one with the trusting mind." (Jianzhi Sengcan)

"Pursue not the outer entanglements;
Dwell not in the inner void;
Be serene in the oneness of things;
And dualism vanishes by itself." (Jianzhi Sengcan)

"Return to the root and you will find the meaning." (Jianzhi Sengcan)

"Step aside from all thinking, and there is nowhere you can't go." (Jianzhi Sengcan)

"Stop talking, stop thinking, and there is nothing you will not understand. Return to the root and you will find Meaning." (Jianzhi Sengcan)

"The mind, the Buddha, living creatures - these are not three different things." (Jianzhi Sengcan)

"The more you think and talk, the more you lose the Way." (Jianzhi Sengcan)

"The perfect way is without difficulty, for it avoids picking and choosing. Only when you stop liking and disliking will all be clearly understood. Be not concerned with right or wrong, for the conflict between right and wrong is the sickness of the mind." (Jianzhi Sengcan)

"The struggle between 'for' and 'against' is the mind's worst disease." (Jianzhi Sengcan)

"The two exist because of the One,
But hold not even to this One;
When the one Consciousness -is not disturbed,
The ten thousand things offer no offence." (Jianzhi Sengcan)

"To live in the Great Way is neither easy nor difficult, but those with limited views are fearful and irresolute: the faster they hurry, the slower they go, and clinging cannot be limited: even to be attached to the idea of enlightenment is to go astray. Just let things be in their own way and there will be neither coming nor going. Obey the nature of things (your own nature), and you will walk freely and undisturbed." (Jianzhi Sengcan)

"The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences... If you wish to see the truth then hold no opinion for or against. " (Jianzhi Sengcan)

"The struggle of what one likes and what one dislikes is the disease of the mind. The struggle of what one likes and what one dislikes is the disease of the mind." (Jianzhi Sengcan)

"The great way is not difficult if you don't cling to good or bad. Just let go of your preferences; and everything will become perfectly clear." (Jianzhi Sengcan)

"The one is none other than the All, the All none other than the One." (Jianzhi Sengcan)

"There is no need to seek truth, only stop having views." (Jianzhi Sengcan)

"To follow the path look to the master follow the master walk with the master see through the master become the master." (Jianzhi Sengcan)

"When mind exists undisturbed in the Way, nothing in the world can offend, and when a thing can no longer offend it ceases to exist in the old way. When no discriminating thoughts arise, the old mind ceases to exist." (Jianzhi Sengcan)

"When no discriminating thoughts arise, the old mind ceases to exist." (Jianzhi Sengcan)

"When thought is in bondage the truth is hidden, for everything is murky and unclear, and the burdensome practice of judging brings annoyance and weariness. What benefit can be derived from distinctions and separations?" (Jianzhi Sengcan)

"When you try to stop activity to achieve passivity your very effort fills you with activity." (Jianzhi Sengcan)

Week 2021-43: Dajian Huineng [Eno Daikan] - Collected Quotes

"A finger points at the moon, but the moon is not at the tip of the finger. Words points at the truth, but the truth is not in words." (Dajian Huineng, cca 7th century)

"As one lamp serves to dispel a thousand years of darkness, so one flash of wisdom destroys ten thousand years of ignorance." (Dajian Huineng, cca 7th century)

"Because wisdom is innate, we can all enlighten ourselves." (Dajian Huineng, cca 7th century)

"Confused by thoughts, we experience duality in life. Unencumbered by ideas, the enlightened see the one Reality."

"Before you think good or evil, who are you?" (Dajian Huineng, cca 7th century)

"By amending our mistakes, we get wisdom. By defending our faults, we betray an unsound mind." (Dajian Huineng, cca 7th century)

"Good friends, how then are meditation and wisdom alike? They are like the lamp and the light it gives forth. If there is a lamp there is light; if there is no lamp there is no light. The lamp is the substance of light; the light is the function of the lamp. Thus, although they have two names, in substance they are not two. Meditation and wisdom are also like this." (Dajian Huineng, cca 7th century)

"It is only by entering into samadhi that I can discuss seeing one’s true self-nature (kensho) without also talking about self-liberation." (Dajian Huineng, cca 7th century)

"It is your minds that are moving." (Dajian Huineng, cca 7th century)

"Look within!... The secret is inside you." (Dajian Huineng, cca 7th century)

"Our Essence of Mind is intrinsically pure, and if we knew our mind and realized what our nature is, all of us would attain Buddhahood." (Dajian Huineng, cca 7th century)

"Seeing one’s true self-nature yet not being disturbed is called Zen." (Dajian Huineng, cca 7th century)

"Since in reality all is void, Whereon can the dust fall?" (Dajian Huineng, cca 7th century)

"Sit all together in meditation. Become peacefully calm and quiet, without motion, without stillness, without birth, without destruction, without coming or going, with no judgments of right or wrong, neither staying nor going. This, then, is the Great Way." (Dajian Huineng, cca 7th century)

"The capacity of the mind is broad and huge, like the vast sky. Do not sit with a mind fixed on emptiness. If you do, you will fall into a neutral kind of emptiness. Emptiness includes the sun, moon, stars, and planets, the great earth, mountains and rivers, all trees and grasses, bad people and good people, bad things and good things, heaven and hell; they are all in the midst of emptiness. The emptiness of human nature is also like this." (Dajian Huineng, cca 7th century)

"The complete teachings of all Buddhas - past, present, and future - are to be found within the essence of every human being." (Dajian Huineng, cca 7th century)

"The meaning of life is to see." (Dajian Huineng, cca 7th century)

"The truth is to be lived, not just mouthed." (Dajian Huineng, cca 7th century)

"There is no Bodhi tree,
Nor stand of a mirror bright.
Since all is void,
Where can the dust alight" (Dajian Huineng, cca 7th century)

"To be bigoted and argue with others, is to subject one's essence of mind to the bitterness of mundane existence." (Dajian Huineng, cca 7th century)

"To meditate means to realize inwardly the imperturbability of the Essence of Mind." (Dajian Huineng, cca 7th century)

The reason why we are perturbed is because we allow ourselves to be carried away by the circumstances we are in. Those who are able to keep their mind unperturbed, irrespective of circumstances, have attained Inner Peace." (Dajian Huineng, cca 7th century)

"Truth has nothing to do with words. Truth can be likened to the bright moon in the sky. Words, in this case, can be likened to a finger. The finger can point to the moon's location. However, the finger is not the moon. To look at the moon, it is necessary to gaze beyond the finger, right?" (Dajian Huineng, cca 7th century)

"When all things are illumined by wisdom and there is neither grasping nor throwing away, then you can see your own nature and gain the Buddha Way." (Dajian Huineng, cca 7th century)

"When our mind works freely without any hindrance, and is at liberty to 'come' or to 'go', we attain Samadhi of Prajna, or liberation. Such a state is called the function of 'thoughtlessness'. But to refrain from thinking of anything, so that all thoughts are suppressed, is to be Dharma-ridden, and this is an erroneous view." (Dajian Huineng, cca 7th century)

"Within our impure mind the pure one is to be found." (Dajian Huineng, cca 7th century)

"Words are not truth. Truth is like the moon, and words are like my finger. I can point to the moon with my finger, but my finger is not the moon. Do you need my finger to see the moon?" (Dajian Huineng, cca 7th century)

"Za (sitting) means to not give rise to thoughts (no dualism) under any circumstance. Zen (meditation) means to see your original nature and not become confused." (Dajian Huineng, cca 7th century)

"Zazen is seated meditation-the opposite of contemplation-the emptying of the mind of all thoughts in order simply to be. In the midst of all evil, not a thought is aroused in the mind-this is called za. Seeing into one's Self-nature, not being moved at all-this is called Zen." (Dajian Huineng, cca 7th century)

Week 2021-42: Hsu Yun [Xuyun] - Collected Quotes

"Fundamentally, our four elements are void and the five aggregates (skandhas) are non-existent. It is only because of (our) wrong thoughts which grasp (everything) that we like the illusion of the (impermanent) world and are thereby held in bondage. Consequently, we are unable to (perceive) the voidness of the four elements and (to realize) the non-existence of birth and death. However, if in a single thought, we can have an experience of that which is not born, there will be no need for those Dharma doors expounded by Shakyamuni Buddha." (Xu Yun, "Discourses and Dharma Words")

"How wide are the horizons of the spinning earth! The moonlight leads the tides and the sun's light will not be confined within the net of heaven. But in the end all things return to the One. The deaf and the dumb, the crippled and deformed are all restored to One's perfection." (Hsu Yun)

"In grasping that one remark, Pang was able to complete his enlightenment. He saw that Uncritical Mind was not enough. His mind had to become as immense as Buddha Mind; it had to encompass all Samsara and Nirvana, to expand to Infinity’s Void. Such a mind could swallow the Pacific." (Xu Yun "Empty Cloud")

"It is only because of our insatiable desires since the time without beginning that we now drift about in the sea of mortality, within which there are 84,000 passions and all sorts of habits that we cannot wipe out. (In consequence), we are unable to attain the truth and to be like Buddhas and Bodhisattvas who are permanently enlightened and are free from delusion." (Xu Yun, "Discourses and Dharma Words")

"Saints and ordinary folks are the same from the start. Inquiring about a difference is like asking to borrow string when you've got a good strong rope. Every Dharma is known in the heart." (Hsu Yun)

"Vow to wipe out all that is;
Beware of making real what is not.
Life in this (mortal) world
Is a shadow, an echo." (Xu Yun, "Discourses and Dharma Words")

"You've traveled up ten thousand steps in search of the truth. So many days in the archives, copying, copying. The gravity of the Tang and the profundity of the Sung make heavy baggage. Here! I've picked you a bunch of wild flowers. Their meaning is the same but they're much easier to carry." (Hsu Yun)

Week 2021-41: Ajahn Chah [Chah Subhaddo] - Collected Quotes

"Anything which is troubling you, anything which is irritating you, that is your teacher" (Ajahn Chah)

"Dharma is in your mind, not in the forest. Don't believe others, just listen to your mind. You don't have to go anywhere else. Wisdom is in yourself, just like a sweet ripe mango is already in a young green one." (Ajahn Chah)

"Do everything with a mind that lets go. Do not expect praise or reward." (Ajahn Chah)

"Do not be in a hurry or try to push your practice. If you become peaceful, then accept it,; if you don’t become peaceful, then accept that also. This is the nature of the mind. We must find our own practice and persevere." (Ajahn Chah)

"Do not try to become anything. Do not make yourself into anything. Do not be a meditator. Do not become enlightened. When you sit, let it be. What you walk, let it be. Grasp at nothing. Resist nothing." (Ajahn Chah)

"Don’t be attached to visions or lights in meditation, don’t rise or fall with them. What’s so great about brightness? My flashlight has it. It can’t help us rid ourselves of our suffering." (Ajahn Chah)

"Don't think that only sitting with the eyes closed is practice. If you do think this way, then quickly change your thinking. Steady practice is keeping mindful in every posture, whether sitting, walking, standing or lying down. When coming out of sitting, don't think that you're coming out of meditation, but that you are only changing postures. If you reflect in this way, you will have peace. Wherever you are, you will have this attitude of practice with you constantly. You will have a steady awareness within yourself." (Ajahn Chah)

"Happiness and suffering do not depend on being poor or rich, they depend on having the right or wrong understanding in our mind." (Ajahn Chah)

"If you let go a little you will have a little happiness. If you let go a lot you will have a lot of happiness. If you let go completely you will be free." (Ajahn Chah)

"If you see certainty in that which is uncertain, you are bound to suffer." (Ajahn Chah)

"If you want to understand suffering you must look into the situation at hand. The teachings say that wherever a problem arises it must be settled right there. Where suffering lies is right where non-suffering will arise, it ceases at the place where it arises. If suffering arises you must contemplate right there, you don't have to run away. You should settle the issue right there. One who runs away from suffering out of fear is the most foolish person of all. He will simply increases his stupidity endlessly." (Ajahn Chah)

"If your mind is happy then you are happy anywhere you go.
When wisdom awakens within you, you will see Truth wherever you look.
Truth is all there is.
It's like when you learned how to read, you can then read anywhere you go." (Ajahn Chah)

"Just know what is happening in your mind - not happy or sad about it, not attached. If you suffer see it, know it, and be empty. It's like a letter - you have to open it before you can know what's in it." (Ajahn Chah)

"Learn to see that it is not things that bother us, that we go out to bother them. See the world as a mirror. It is all a reflection of the mind. When you know this, you can grow in every moment, and every experience reveals truth and brings understanding." (Ajahn Chah)

"Look at your own mind. The one who carries things thinks he's got things, but the one who looks on sees only the heaviness. Throw away things, lose them, and find lightness." (Ajahn Chah)

"Meditation is like a single log of wood. Insight and investigation are one end of the log; calm and concentration are the other end. If you lift up the whole log, both sides come up at once. Which is concentration and which is insight? Just this mind." (Ajahn Chah)

"Mental activity is like a deadly poisonous cobra. If we don't interfere with a cobra, how poisonous it may be, it simply goes its own away." (Ajahn Chah)

"Of course there are dozens of meditation techniques, but it all comes down to this - just let it all be. Step over here where it is cool, out of the battle. Why not give it a try?" (Ajahn Chah)

"Once you understand non-self, then the burden of life is gone. You'll be at peace with the world. When we see beyond self, we no longer cling to happiness and we can truly be happy. Learn to let go without struggle, simply let go, to be just as you are - no holding on, no attachment, free." (Ajahn Chah)

"One day some people came to the master and asked: How can you be happy in a world of such impermanence, where you cannot protect your loved ones from harm, illness or death? The master held up a glass and said: Someone gave me this glass; It holds my water admirably and it glistens in the sunlight. I touch it and it rings! One day the wind may blow it off the shelf, or my elbow may knock it from the table. I know this glass is already broken, so I enjoy it - incredibly." (Ajahn Chah)

"One man watches a river flow by. If he does not wish it to flow, to change ceaselessly in accord with its nature, he will suffer great pain. Another man understands that nature of the river is to change constantly, regardless of his likes and dislikes, and therefore he does not suffer. To know existence as this flow, empty of lasting pleasure, void of self, is to find that which is stable and free of suffering, to find true peace in the world." (Ajahn Chah)

"Peace is within oneself to be found in the same place as agitation and suffering. It is not found in a forest or on a hilltop, nor is it given by a teacher. Where you experience suffering, you can also find freedom from suffering. Trying to run away from suffering is actually to run toward it." (Ajahn Chah)

"Proper effort is not the effort to make something particular happen. It is the effort to be aware and awake each moment, the effort to overcome laziness and merit, the effort to make each activity of our day meditation." (Ajahn Chah)

"Read yourself, not books. Truth isn't outside, that's only memory, not wisdom. Memory without wisdom is like an empty thermos bottle - if you don't fill it, it's useless." (Ajahn Chah)

"Regarding this Dhamma, it is not something that we can simply talk about or take another's word for it. We need to develop meditation so that the understanding arises clearly within oneself. It is not the case that merely by listening to another's explanation our defilements will disappear. When we gain some understanding we need to chew on it again so that we see it for ourselves with certainty: paccattam." (Ajahn Chah)

"Remember you don't meditate to get anything, but to get rid of things. We do it, not with desire, but with letting go. If you want anything, you wont find it." (Ajahn Chah)

"The Dhamma has to be found by looking into your own heart and seeing that which is true and that which is not, that which is balanced and that which is not balanced." (Ajahn Chah)

"The Dhamma has to sink deeply into the mind so that whatever we do, the mind has always goodness within it. All the ways of making merit are aiming at this. Goodness lies in the right view that is established in the mind. Then we don't have to celebrate it or let anybody know about it, simply let the mind have firm confidence in the goodness and keep going like this." (Ajahn Chah)

"The Dhamma is revealing itself in every moment, but only when the mind is quiet can we understand what it is saying, for the Dhamma teaches without words." (Ajahn Chah)

"The forest is peaceful, why aren’t you? You hold on to things causing your confusion. Let nature teach you. Hear the bird’s song then let go. If you know nature, you’ll know truth. If you know truth, you’ll know nature." (Ajahn Chah)

"The mind of one who practices doesn't run away anywhere, it stays right there. Good, evil, happiness and unhappiness, right and wrong arise, and he knows them all. The meditator simply knows them, they don't enter his mind. That is, he has no clinging. He is simply the experiencer." (Ajahn Chah)

"The serene and peaceful mind is the true epitome of human achievement." (Ajahn Chah)

"There are people who are born and die and never once are aware of their breath going in and out of their body. That's how far away they live from themselves." (Ajahn Chah)

"There are two kinds of suffering. There is the suffering you run away from, which follows you everywhere. And there is the suffering you face directly, and so become free." (Ajahn Chah)

"These days people don't search for the Truth. People study simply in order to find knowledge necessary to make a living, raise families and look after themselves, that's all. To them, being smart is more important than being wise!" (Ajahn Chah)

"Things are simply the way they are. They don't give us suffering. Like a thorn: Does a sharp thorn give us suffering? No. It's simply a thorn. It doesn't give suffering to anybody. If we step on it, we suffer immediately.
Why do we suffer? Because we stepped on it. So the suffering comes from us." (Ajahn Chah)

"To define Buddhism without a lot of words and phrases, we can simply say, 'Don't cling or hold on to anything. Harmonize with actuality, with things as they are.'" (Ajahn Chah)

"To observe and watch one's own mind is something really interesting. The untrained mind will run and follow its old habit patterns. Because it has not been trained and taught, it will get lost in all kinds of stories and issues. Therefore we have to train our mind. The meditation practice in Buddhism is all about training one's own mind." (Ajahn Chah)

"Try to be mindful, and let things take their natural course. Then your mind will become still in any surroundings, like a clear forest pool. All kinds of wonderful, rare animals will come to drink at the pool, and you will clearly see the nature of all things. You will see many strange and wonderful things come and go, but you will be still. This is the happiness of the Buddha." (Ajahn Chah)

"We don't meditate to see heaven, but to end suffering." (Ajahn Chah)

"We have limited time in our life, therefore we should try to teach ourselves, not to teach others. We should conquer ourselves, rather than conquer others. Whether coming or going, standing, sitting or lying down, our mind should be focused in this way. If we practice like this and develop mindfulness continuously, wisdom arises quickly and this is a fast way of practice." (Ajahn Chah)

"We practice to learn how to let go, not how to increase our holding on to things. Enlightenment appears when you stop wanting anything." (Ajahn Chah)

"When the heart truly understands, it lets go of everything." (Ajahn Chah)

"When we conquer ourselves, then everything will be conquered: oneself, others, and all the sense objects as well, coming in by way of the eyes, ears, nose, tongue and body - it will all get conquered like this." (Ajahn Chah)

"When we sit in meditation and hear a sound, we think, 'Oh, that sound's bothering me.' If we see it like this, we suffer. But if we investigate a little deeper, we see that the sound is simply sound. If we understand like this, then there's nothing more to it. We leave it be. The sound is just sound, why should you go and grab it? You see that actually it was you who went out and disturbed the sound." (Ajahn Chah)

"When we see beyond self, we no longer cling to happiness. And when we stop clinging, we can begin to be happy." (Ajahn Chah)

"Where does peace arise? Peace arises whenever we let something go." (Ajahn Chah)

"Wisdom is in yourself, just like a sweet ripe mango is already in a young green one." (Ajahn Chah)

"With even a little intuitive wisdom we will be able to see clearly the ways of the world. We will come to understand that everything in the world is our teacher." (Ajahn Chah)

"You are your own teacher. Looking for teachers can’t solve your own doubts. Investigate yourself to find the truth - inside, not outside. Knowing yourself is most important." (Ajahn Chah)

"You say that you are too busy to meditate. Do you have time to breathe? Meditation is your breath. Why do you have time to breathe but not to meditate? Breathing is something vital to peoples lives. If you see that Dhamma practice is vital to your life, then you will feel that breathing and practicing the Dhamma are equally important." (Ajahn Chah)

Week 2021-40: Shido Bunan - Collected Quotes

"If we know how to practice Zazen without actually sitting,
What obstacles should there be,
Blocking the Way to Buddhahood?" (Shido Bunan)

"In meditation turn over the evil saps of your body to the Perfected One. If you do this, you will surely become a Buddha. [...] The enlightened one follows nature whether in walking orstanding, in sitting or reclining." (Shido Bunan)

"It is easy to keep things at a distance; it is hard to be naturally beyond them." (Shido Bunan)

"Man builds a house and lives in it, while the Buddha dwells in his body. The householder resides constantly in the house, and the Buddha resides in the heart of man. If through compassion things and deeds become easy, the heart becomes clear, and when the heart is clear thc Buddha appears. If you wish to clarify your heart, sit in meditation and approach to the Perfected One." (Shido Bunan)

"People see others in terms of themselves. The vision of fools is dreadful. If there is ambition in oneself, one will see others on the basis of that frame of mind. He who lusts looks with lust. Unless one is a sage, seeing is dangerous. Even though there are people on the great way, people who can see and know are rare. What a waste. A wise man discerns the potential of others, though they may not be equal to him, and makes use of their level of understanding." (Shido Bunan)

"There are no mountains to enter outside of mind, making the unknown your hiding place." (Shido Bunan)

"To acquiesce to the teaching of enlightenment, as it is, directly abandon all things, merge with the body of thusness and experience peerless peace and bliss, is no more than a matter of whether or not you think of the body. Although there are people who think this teaching is true, it's hard to find someone who strives to make it his own." (Shido Bunan)

"While deluded, one is used by this body; when enlightened, one uses this body." (Shido Bunan)

Week 2021-39: Ta-hui Tsung-kao [Dahui Zonggao] - Collected Quotes

"If one achieves a genuine breakthrough, then [one realizes that ] a Confucian is no different from a Buddhist, and a Buddhist is no different from a Confucian; a monk is no different from a layman, and a layman is no different from a monk; an ordinary man is no different from a sage, and a sage is no different from an ordinary man. [In fact] I am you and you are I; Heaven is earth and earth is Heaven; waves are the same as water, and water is no different from waves. Kumis and rich butter are but one taste; bracelets and hairpins are all melted from gold [...] When you reach this state, you are in control of everything." (Ta-hui Tsung-kao)

"In training ourselves to solve koan, we should neither make guesses or comments nor try to understand them. It is unnecessary to know the meanings of the words or justify our attitudes toward the koan presented to us. On the contrary, we should neither be empty and tranquil nor expect to be enlightened. It is still worse to be absent-minded. Whether we walk, dwell, sit, or lie down, we should always be one with the koan and try to keep in touch with them all the time." (Ta-hui Tsung-kao)

"No-mind does not mean the unconsciousness of wood or tile. It means that when you come into contact with external objects, your mind is immovable and does not get attached to anything. There is total freedom and non-obstruction. You are not defiled by anything. On the other hand, you should not abide in non-defilement either. While you view the body and the mind as a dream and an illusion, you nevertheless do not abide in the emptiness of dreams and illusions. When you reach this state, you have then really achieved no-mind." (Ta-hui Tsung-kao)

"When you stabilize the activities of the discursive mind and consciousness, when not even one thought stirs, this is the true enlightenment. With this correct state of mind, you can function freely during the twenty-four hours of the day. Smelling flowers, tasting food, sitting still or walking around - whether you are engaged in activity or not, your mind is always bright and undisturbed. You are naturally free from distorted views. Thus your mind is always pure whether you have thought or not. Therefore, when you act, this is the function (yung) of this deep and luminous Mind, and when you rest, this is then the essence (t'i) of the same Mind. Even though there is a difference between essence and function, 'the Mind is still the one and the same." (Ta-hui Tsung-kao)

"They sit in meditation in the Ghosts’ Cave at the foot of the Black Mountain idly without preaching and without saying anything. Drawing their eyebrows together and closing their eyes, they say they are in the state of absolute samadhi and in the state of their fathers and mothers not yet born. Further, calling this state silence filled with eternal light, they identify their meditation with Zen." (Ta-hui Tsung-kao [letter to Chosha Jogen (Chang-she Chuang-yuan)])

"You should always be one with everything instead of deviating, and must be awakened to your true self in your daily life while walking, standing, sitting, and lying down."  (Ta-hui Tsung-kao)

"You should straightforwardly leap out of the duality of birth and death with one bound." (Ta-hui Tsung-kao)

Week 2021-37: Koun Ejo - Collected Quotes

"Deep practice of the Way requires tireless exertion and confidence in what is true. Unless you join the Lineage of the Buddhas life after life, how can you understand anything that I say at all? Do not move away from it." (Koun Ejo, "Komyozo-Zanmai" ["Samadhi of the Treasury of the Radiant Light", 13th century)

"Do not be pulled around by states of mind or objects. Do not rely on intellectual knowledge. Don't show in your hands what you receive on your seat in the Monks' Hall. Just throw body and mind into the Great Treasury of Luminosity and don't look back." (Koun Ejo, "Komyozo-Zanmai" ["Samadhi of the Treasury of the Radiant Light", 13th century)

"Even in the midst of change, the Light is not hindered by it. Forests, flowers, grass, and leaves; human beings or animals, big or small, long or short, square or round: all manifest themselves simultaneously, independent of discriminating thoughts or will." (Koun Ejo, "Komyozo-Zanmai" ["Samadhi of the Treasury of the Radiant Light", 13th century)

"Just sit as if you were the boundless empty sky or a ball of fire. Trust everything to the inhalation and exhalation. Even if eighty-four thousand idle thoughts arise, each and every one may become the Light of prajna (undiscriminating wisdom) if you do not pay them any attention and simply let them go." (Koun Ejo, "Komyozo-Zanmai" ["Samadhi of the Treasury of the Radiant Light", 13th century)

"Not only in sitting, but every step you take is the movement of the Light. Step after step, no discrimination… To inhale or to exhale, to listen or to touch, being without thoughts and discrimination is nothing other than the tranquil illumination of the Light in which body and mind are one. Therefore, when someone calls, you answer. This is the Light in which ordinary people and sages, the deluded and the enlightened, are one." (Koun Ejo, "Komyozo-Zanmai" ["Samadhi of the Treasury of the Radiant Light", 13th century)

"Those who follow conventional views believe that what is illusory is real, what is transient is permanent, and so they are concerned only with gain and loss and coarse profit. Their lives are like candles in the wind and yet they place their trust in what is uncertain even for tomorrow. Breathing out does not mean that you will necessarily breath in again. And so they are filled with glee and despair at momentary changes." (Koun Ejo, "Komyozo-Zanmai" ["Samadhi of the Treasury of the Radiant Light", 13th century)

"You students, are you trying to learn zazen or are you trying to learn sitting Buddhahood? If you are learning zazen, Zen is not sitting and lying down. If you are learning sitting Buddhahood, Buddha is not a fixed form. According to the teaching of non-attachment or non-settling down, you should not adopt this or reject that. You students, if you try to become a sitting Buddha you kill the Buddha, and if you become attached to sitting you will not reach that principle." (Koun Ejo)

"You students! Are you trying to learn zazen or are you trying to become a Buddha? If you are trying to learn zazen, you must not be taken up by the form called 'sitting' because Zen is something beyond sitting and lying down. Again, if you say you are trying to become a Buddha, you cannot become a captive to the one set form called 'sitting' because Buddha is something absolute."  (Koun Ejo)

Resources:
[1] Koun Ejo, "Komyozo-Zanmai" ["Samadhi of the Treasury of the Radiant Light", 13th century [link]

Week 2021-36: Toshitsugu Takamatsu - Collected Quotes

"As the sennin lives on wonderful pictures of Mother Nature and makes the singing of birds and the sight of animals his mental food, so do the ninja." (Toshitsugu Takamatsu)

"Being natural is the ultimate secret of our art." (Toshitsugu Takamatsu)

"Develop a Zen spirit and understand its implications. Become aware of sincerity and faith. Self-reflection and self-realization, then thankfulness and benevolence, are to be pursued." (Toshitsugu Takamatsu)

"Even when you are faced with certain death, die laughing." (Toshitsugu Takamatsu)

"For taijutsu, the flexibility of the legs is the most important factor, not the strength of the legs." (Toshitsugu Takamatsu)

"'How difficult is life when one is not surprised by anything and laughing every day? " (Toshitsugu Takamatsu)

"I'm not telling you to defeat the enemy, but be a man who can live. Never be enslaved by martial arts take pleasure in them." (Toshitsugu Takamatsu)

"If an expert in the fighting arts sincerely pursues the essence of ninjutsu, devoid of the influences of the ego’s desires, the student will progressively come to realize the ultimate secret for becoming invincible - the attainment of the ‘mind and eyes of god’." (Toshitsugu Takamatsu)

"Ninja should have the benevolence to protect men of justice since there are lots of good and respectable people in the world." (Toshitsugu Takamatsu)

"Supernatural power is not a skill or trick. It exists in your heart, in your sincerity. Religion is the same, too." (Toshitsugu Takamatsu)

"The heart of taijutsu is important and only through training will one polish that heart (like a gem) and understand true taijutsu." (Toshitsugu Takamatsu)

"The ninja should dedicate themselves to sincerity and justice." (Toshitsugu Takamatsu)

"The skills of self-protection, which should provide a feeling of inner peace and security for the martial artist, so often develop without a balance in the personality and lead the lesser martial artist into warped realms of unceasing conflict and competition which eventually consume him." (Toshitsugu Takamatsu)

"The true value of Budo is to train the mind to see clearly and maintain spiritual strength." (Toshitsugu Takamatsu)

"The way of the martial artist is the way of enduring, surviving and prevailing over all that would destroy him. More than delivering strikes and slashes, and deeper in significance than the simple outwitting of an enemy, Ninpô is the way of attaining that which we need while making the world a better place. The skill of the Ninja is the art of winning." (Toshitsugu Takamatsu)

"The way to experience ultimate happiness is to let go of all worries and regrets, and to know that being happy is the most satisfying of life's feelings. Reflect back on all the progress in your life and allow the positive, creative and joyous thoughts to outshine and overwhelm any sorrow or grief that may linger in the recesses of your mind. Knowing that disease and disaster are natural parts of life is the key to overcoming adversity with a calm and happy spirit. Happiness is waiting there in front of you. Only you can decide whether or not you choose to experience it. Take this to heart." (Toshitsugu Takamatsu)

"[...] the enemy who stands against the laws of nature has lost his battle before he begins the fight. The first priority to the ninja was to win without fighting." (Toshitsugu Takamatsu)

"What matters in a text is read between the lines in the spaces between the words." (Toshitsugu Takamatsu)