Enlightenment or awakening is not the creation of a new state of affairs but the recognition of what already is.
Many people never grow up. They stay all their lives with a passionate need for external authority and guidance, pretending not to trust their own judgment.
The 'you' who you think you are does not exist.
Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.
When a man no longer confuses himself with the definition of himself that others have given him, he is at once universal and unique.
Nothing is more creative than death, since it has the whole secret of life. It means that the past must be abandoned, that the unknown cannot be avoided, that 'I' cannot continue, and that nothing can be ultimately fixed. When a man knows this, he lives for the first time in his life. By holding his breath, he loses it. By letting go he finds it.
The question is not what I should do in the future to get it, but rather, what am I presently doing that prevents me from realizing it right now?
Insecurity is the result of trying to be secure.
Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence.
The destination of life is this eternal moment.
You must not be afraid of playing wrong notes. Just forget it, play it wrong! But play!
For unless one is able to live fully in the present, the future is a hoax. There is no point whatever in making plans for a future which you will never be able to enjoy. When your plans mature, you will still be living for some other future beyond. You will never, never be able to sit back with full contentment and say, "Now, I've arrived!" Your entire education has deprived you of this capacity because it was preparing you for the future, instead of showing you how to be alive now.
Problems that remain persistently insoluble should always be suspected as questions asked in the wrong way.
To go out of your mind once a day is tremendously important, because by going out of your mind you come to your senses. And if you stay in your mind all of the time, you are over rational, in other words you are like a very rigid bridge which because it has no give; no craziness in it, is going to be blown down by the first hurricane.
It takes time for an acorn to turn into an oak, but the oak is already implied in the acorn.
What keeps us from happiness is our inability to fully inhabit the present
To understand music, you must listen to it. But so long as you are thinking, “I am listening to this music,” you are not listening.
Everything in the world is gloriously meaningless.
There is a deep, peaceful calm in the dawning of a new day.
You, yourself, are the eternal energy which appears as this Universe. You didn't come into this world; you came out of it. Like a wave from the ocean.
Of course, you can’t force your mind to be silent. That would be like trying to smooth ripples in water with a flatiron. Water becomes clear and calm only when left alone.
Buddha's doctrine: Man suffers because of his craving to possess and keep forever things which are essentially impermanent...this frustration of the desire to possess is the immediate cause of suffering.
Real religion is the transformation of anxiety into laughter.
Enjoyment is an art and a skill for which we have little talent or energy... your entire education has has deprived you of this capacity because it was preparing you for the future, instead of showing you how to be alive now.
Psychedelic experience is only a glimpse of genuine mystical insight, but a glimpse which can be matured and deepened by the various ways of meditation in which drugs are no longer necessary or useful. If you get the message, hang up the phone. For psychedelic drugs are simply instruments, like microscopes, telescopes, and telephones. The biologist does not sit with eye permanently glued to the microscope, he goes away and works on what he has seen.
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