#buddhism

To become enlightened is not just to slip into some disconnected euphoria, an oceanic feeling of mystic oneness apart from ordinary reality. It is not even to come up with a solution, a sort of formula to control reality. Rather, it is an experience of release from all compulsions and sufferings, combined with a precise awareness of any relevent subject of knowledge. Having attained enlightenment one knows everything that matters, and the precise nature of all that is. ↗

— Robert Thurman

#spirituality #experience

Westereners often think that the East is one vast Buddhist temple, which is rather like thinking the West is one vast Carthusian monastery. If the [Western people who like Buddhism] were to visit the East, he'd certainly experience many new things, but he'd find first, that the food is under lock and key and second, that humans are considered to be a miserable, destructive, greedy lot, just as they are in the West. ↗

— Daniel Quinn

#economy #my-ishmael #philosophy-of-life #experience

[S]he believed that the Buddhists were right–that if you want, you will suffer; if you love, you will grieve. (68) ↗

— Anne Lamott

#buddhism #desire #grief #love #suffering

Not thinking about anything is Zen. Once you know this, walking, sitting, or lying down, everything you do is Zen. ↗

— Bodhidharma

#enlightenment #mind #zen #enlightenment

Not till your thoughts cease all their branching here and there, not till you abandon all thoughts of seeking for something, not till your mind is motionless as wood or stone, will you be on the right road to the Gate. ↗

— Huang Po

#dharma #enlightenment #mind #spirituality #zen

Once again, we are reminded that awakening, or enlightenment is not the property of Buddhism, any more than Truth is the property of Christianity. Neither the Buddha nor the Christ belongs exclusively to the communities that were founded in their names. They belong to all people of goodwill, all who are attentive to the secret which lives in the depths of their breath and their consciousness. (14) ↗

— Jean-Yves Leloup

#awakening #breath #buddhism #christianity #community

Attachment leads to suffering. ↗

— Gautama Buddha

#buddhism

No word matters. But man forgets reality and remembers words. ↗

— Roger Zelazny

#history #humanity #memory #narrative #reality

Whereever you are, you are one with the clouds and one with the sun and the stars you see. You are one with everything. That is more true than I can say, and more true than you can hear. ↗

— Shunryu Suzuki

#buddhism

We have two alternatives: either we question our beliefs - or we don't. Either we accept our fixed versions of reality- or we begin to challenge them. In Buddha's opinion, to train in staying open and curious - to train in dissolving our assumptions and beliefs - is the best use of our human lives. ↗

— Pema Chödrön

#buddhism