Simply by performing good actions and thinking good thoughts you will not attain enlightenment. It takes something more.
The absorption in nirvana is all that matters. All the strategies of your life are only there to empower you for your final assault on the impenetrable cliffs of forever.
To go to the very center of the mind of God, to be that, to become aware of our infiniteness, is the goal of Buddhism and along the way, to be as kind to others as possible without thinking that we are particularly wonderful.
When you could get angry with someone and separate yourself from them, don’t do that. If you have people who are difficult to deal with, be neither attracted nor repulsed. Go a step higher.
It is impossible to move on to new states of mind unless you seek the forgiveness of those you’ve offended.
I’ve moved a lot of my students into a high state of mind, but they don’t do the things I have shown them how to do. So then, they drop down into a lower stage of attention.
Personal power is a feeling that everybody is looking for called satisfaction. It is different from enlightenment, but you need personal power to become enlightened. Personal power is not the end of the process.
The problem is with any practice is that it is a practice. That is why people don’t win. The reason why people don’t win is they get stuck in ideas, habits, and ways of seeing life.
I can understand pathways to enlightenment where people shun certain aspects of the sensual world because they feel that these aspects are very powerful; they’re not in a position to control their appetites.
The person who practices advanced meditation is usually not married, some are. They usually don’t have children, some do. But chances are they will not marry or have children because it demands to much time.
The avoidance of that which causes you pain does not produce enlightenment. It produces avoidance. Religion is the avoidance of pain and suffering.
Never settle for that which is easy and comfortable or the necessity of seeking that which is difficult and uncomfortable.
Be concerned with the welfare of others without any sense of self-importance that one is better because one meditates or leads a certain type of life.
We seek absolute neutrality in Buddhism. We don’t want to be drawn into anything in particular. We don’t want to be pushed away from anything in particular.
Even a good self will create another good self in the next life, and another one, and that good self will never be enlightened. You’ll be bound, life after life, by good karma.
You get to the point where you have to wash the dishes. That’s the fun in life. Being behind the scenes and doing things for others; being an instrument of that cause. That is the secret teaching.
Inspire people very selectively with sincerity and with respect. You want to increase your energy? Then want, inside your heart, to inspire others. It will lift you tremendously.
When you live a life devoid of ritual and convention, with honesty and self-effacement, then you are on the road to freedom.
Buddha indicated that the self, that part of you that incarnates from lifetime to lifetime was causal.
Change is continuous and the aggregate of the self is constantly shifting.