Category: Quotes

“The starting point for most meditators is also the most reliable point of return at any stage of development, for formal and informal, personal and interpersonal practice: the body. Its immediateness, its tangible felt quality, makes it a workable starting point for setting up awareness.” Gregory Kramer, “A Whole-Life Path”

“If we are not aware of our thoughts and actions, they will spring only from habit. The mind just rolls on according to its conditioning. This may produce wholesome or unwholesome results. Without mindfulness there is only a stream of reactions to circumstances; with mindfulness there is choice. Mindfulness is the inflection point of freedom.” ~… Continue reading Quote for the Week

“I did not understand how crucial joy and ease are to right effort. Sometimes, right effort is like the strenuous effort required to turn the soil and plant our gardens; other times it is like the steady gentle application of the sun’s heat as it slowly penetrates the soil and warms the seeds. Discerning which… Continue reading Quote for the Week

“Our look at wise livelihood includes how the goods and services that support life circulate among people, both locally and in society as a whole. It encompasses a variety of economic interactions with the world — the support of our families, the social and environmental impact of our investments, the employment practices of stores where… Continue reading Quote for the Week

A person focused on mutual benefit does not view life as a competition that only some people can win. Rather, one considers what is best for the greater good, something the Buddha described as benefiting both self and others. This is not the greater good that sacrifices some for the welfare of the majority. It… Continue reading Quote for the Week

In speaking of the welfare of others at the same time he spoke of one’s own welfare, the Buddha was clearly aiming this path factor at both personal liberation and human flourishing. So it invites us to ask whether right action applies only to our personal path or must extend to our relationships and to… Continue reading Quote for the Week

Paradoxically, attending to impermanence gives us a certain stability. It involves renouncing a pseudosafety and releases us from the pain of fearing change. In Tibetan Buddhist teachings the spirit of emergence is seen as reinforcing calmness.~ Gregory Kramer, Insight Dialogue: The Interpersonal Path to Freedom.

“If you are facing the right direction, all you need to do is keep on walking.”~ Joseph Goldstein

“Language can bind us together in collective selfishness or shared compassion. Words aim the mind. This astonishing power to direct and focus attention is what gives communication its potency.”  Gregory Kramer, A Whole-Life Path

“Think about one of your wholesome character traits. Perhaps you are concerned with and active in racial or economic justice… Caring about racial justice has roots in compassion and non-harming. Fully tracing the origins of this wholesome quality will not be possible, but as you sit here now, can you locate any specific people, jobs,… Continue reading Quote For The Week