Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.
In this world the greatest courage is to drop the mind aside. The bravest man is who can see the world without the barrier of the mind, just as it is. It is tremendously different, utterly beautiful. There is nobody who is inferior and there is nobody who is superior -- there are no distinctions.
What have we achieved since the end of the Second World War? We have allowed petty, bourgeois regimes in which everything is average, mediocre.
Love is blind, but marriage restores its sight.
Old age is fifteen years older than I am.
A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
Compassion can be roughly defined in terms of a state of mind that is nonviolent and nonharming, or nonaggresive. Because of this there is a danger of confusing compassion with the attachment and intimacy.
The beauty of facing life unprepared is tremendous. Then life has a newness, a youth; then life has a flow and freshness. Then life has so many surprises. And when life has so many surprises boredom never settles in you.
Bad habits are like chains that are too light to feel until they are too heavy to carry.
Meditation is a kind of medicine - its use is only for the time being. Once you have learned the quality, then you need not do any particular meditation; then the meditation has to spread all over your life. Walking is Zen, sitting is Zen.
Then what will be the quality? Watchfully, alert, joyously, unmotivated, centered, loving, flowing, one walks. And the walking is sauntering. Loving, alert, watchful, one sits, unmotivated - not sitting for anything in particular, just enjoying how beautiful just sitting doing nothing is, how relaxing, how restful..... After a long walk, you sit under a tree and the breeze comes and cools you. Each moment one has to be at ease with oneself - not trying to improve, not cultivating anything, not practicing anything.
Walking is Zen, sitting is Zen. Talking or silent, moving, unmoving, the essence is at ease. The essence is at ease: that is the key word. The essence is at ease: that is the key statement. Do whatsoever you are doing, but at the deepest core remain at ease, cool, calm, centered.
Even though your kids will consistently do the exact opposite of what you're telling them to do, you have to keep loving them just as much.
In the Arab world, there is no link between the cultural habits of peoples and the ways of thinking and creating of modern intellectuals. They are two separate worlds.
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
A free mind is a mind that is open to everything and attached to nothing. Most people spend much of their time looking for reasons to be offended. An open mind is never offended because it is free of any attachments. It is never the self that is offended but always the illusion that the self has of itself that is affected by insult! If you can really understand this, deeply grasp it?s truth, live it each day, then pain will be no more. Next time you ?feel? offended look closely within yourself at yourself and ask yourself what was offended? If you remain aware you will see that it was only an image of yourself which you had become attached to, and that image did not resonate with the image contained in the insult. If you weren?t attached, if you didn?t identify with the wrong image of yourself then there would be no offence taken. You would then remain free and therefore happy.
Can you remember a time when you had nothing to eat, nowhere to live, no clothes to wear and no friends. You can't? Because there never was such a time. One of the deepest faiths is that you will always receive what you need. Every time you fear that will not receive what you need, or that others will acquire everything before you, and so deny you, you loose the first and most important faith. The faith that you are worthy and that all your needs will be met. The death of this faith is the birth of desire, and desire eventually becomes greed. Faith is living in the intuitive conviction that all your needs will be met at every level - spiritual, mental and physical. Paradoxically it is the power of that faith that works like a magnet and makes it happen. You won't need to fight anything. Faith attracts all that you need, but not as long as you still want!
