Nature is busy creating absolutely unique individuals, whereas culture has invented a single mold to which all must conform. It is grotesque.

We have allowed brain thinking to develop and dominate our lives.
As a consequence, we are at war within ourselves.
The brain desiring things which the body does not want, and the body desiring things which the brain does not allow; the brain giving directions which the body will not follow, and the body giving impulses which the brain cannot

More and more we try to effect an adaptation to life by means of external gadgets, and attempt to solve our problems by conscious thinking rather than unconscious 'know-how'. This is much less to our advantage than we like to suppose.

Nothing is more creative than death, since it is 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 it go he finds it.

The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.

What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves?

Sometimes people have nothing to say because they're too empty and sometimes people have nothing to say because they're too full.

If we take care of the moment, the years will take care of themselves.

Going to sleep is a little like dying. We completely lose ourselves in a void for some period of time, until we arise again in a dream. When we do so, we may have a different identity and a different body. We may be in a strange place, with people we do not know, involved in baffling activities that may seem quite risky.
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Most importantly, in dream the mind's limitations can be challenged and overcome. As they are, we develop flexibility of mind, and this is most important. Why is flexibility of mind so important? Because the rigidities of mind, the limitations of wrong views that obscure wisdom and constrict experience, keep us ensnared in illusory identities and prevent us from finding freedom.
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(The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep)

The attempt to satisfy greed is like drinking salty water when thirsty.
When lost in greed we look outward rather than inward for satisfaction, yet we never find enough to fill the emptiness we wish to escape.
The real hunger we feel is for knowledge of our true nature.

Why should you worry about the future?
You don't even know the present properly.
Take care of the present
and the future will take care of itself.

I treated Art as the supreme reality and life as a mere mode of fiction.

Only loving kindness and right mindfulness can free us.

It's helpful to remind yourself that meditation is about opening and relaxing with whatever arises, without picking and choosing.

You are not a drop in the ocean.
You are the entire ocean in a drop.

It is important to expect nothing, to take every experience, including the negative ones, as merely steps on the path, and to proceed.

Inner beauty, too, needs occasionally to be told it is beautiful.

Human beings are innately loving beings. When we fail to love, it is because an element of ignorance has intruded into our experience, submerging our natural impulse to love.

Everyone should have themselves regularly overwhelmed by Nature.

Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.