Category: Quotes

“A calmer mind is more able to see past the urgency of immediate pain or pleasure, to apprehend causes and effects more clearly. Release and relief also build confidence in our own innate wisdom. This is not confidence that we are right, but confidence that supports asking questions like, “What is going on right now?”… Continue reading Quote For The Week

“Buddhadasa, a beloved twentieth-century Thai Buddhist teacher, expressed the relationship of personal meditation to our interpersonal lives: “If we are learning anything from our personal meditation practice, then it reveals itself in our relationships with other people.”  Gregory Kramer, “Insight Dialogue: The Interpersonal Path to Freedom”

“We do not usually think of happiness in terms of something ending but rather in terms of good things happening or getting things we want. However, if we observe our lives and think carefully about what we see, it becomes clear that the longings, urgings, wishes, and desires we carry are making us pretty tense –… Continue reading Quote For The Week

“If you let go a little, you will have a little peace. If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace. If you let go completely, you will have complete peace.”  ~ Ajahn Chah

“Notice the ways that people draw attention to themselves – clothing, jokes, attainments – and contemplate the hunger to be seen. Which strategies for gaining attention do you use most? Consider the ancient origins of all of this and allow compassion to manifest in your heart.”  ~ Gregory Kramer, Insight Dialogue: The Interpersonal Path to Freedom

“The next time you notice suffering in one of your relationships, see if you can recognize the grasping in it. Are you holding on to an image, a desire to control, a hope or a fear? Does noticing this cause the clinging or pain to change?”~ Gregory Kramer, Insight Dialogue: The Interpersonal Path to Freedom

“Having physical form, feelings, and perceptions means being touched continually by the pleasant and unpleasant things of this physical world. But we also experience suffering that does not derive from physical or biological situations. Sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and distress derive from our reactions to the situations we experience, not the situations themselves.”  ~ Gregory Kramer, Insight Dialogue:… Continue reading Quote For The Week

“I believe that many of us genuinely feel called to a vision of our lives in which inner and outer transformation are connected. Knowing that we don’t have to do everything, that there are many aspects to transformation, frees us to listen for a calling, for the very specific way in which we might live this… Continue reading Quote For The Week

“Following the principle of non attachment to outcome seems to present us with a radical spiritual paradox whenever we act in the world, whether as a meditator, parent, teacher, or activist: How can we act decisively, energetically, passionately, wisely, and compassionately while giving up our attachment to the results of our actions?”  ~ Donald Rothberg, The Engaged… Continue reading Quote For The Week

“The term upekkha [usually translated as equanimity] literally means ‘balance.’ Equanimity can be understood as evenmindedness, the ability to be present as fully as possible with all experiences – whether we are focused primarily on our internal world or on the external world – with an open heart and clear seeing, without reactivity.”  ~ Donald Rothberg, The Engaged… Continue reading Quote For The Week