Quotes from Ethan Nichtern

There are many people who are more learned than I and more elevated in their wisdom. However, I have never made a separation between the spiritual and the worldly. If you understand the ultimate aspect of the dharma, this is the ultimate aspect of the world. And if you should cultivate the ultimate aspect of the world, this should be in harmony with the dharma. —CHOGYAM TRUNGPA RINPOCHE

When we spend lifetimes numbing out against now, even the gentle stillness of the present moment becomes a threat. Even slowing down long enough to look at your own heartmind becomes an act of revolution against the sheer pace of our social karma.

From the standpoint of karma, being present is all about trust—trusting vulnerability. Being vulnerable doesn't always feel like seeing an inspiring painting or taking a walk in nature. It is often a much more painful and awkward experience, the

When we choose to share things, the question is whether we can do so without changing or sugar-coating what we are saying. For

the lazy assumption that greed—which is demonstrably harmful to the individual who gets caught up in it—is somehow beneficial when replicated across our social institutions does not stand the test of any contemplative analysis of how lasting happiness is actually achieved.

Our mind is conditioned by the past, and to try to alter what we are feeling right now, especially in the name of being a compassionate spiritual person, is just wishful thinking. This is a crucial realization, because we spend so much of life, and, sadly, so much of our spiritual paths, wishing we were feeling something other than what we are actually feeling in the present moment.

In most cases, the truth is a blade that does not need to be sharpened, and we almost never need to twist the knife. Because as a listener we can empathize with the fear that what we hear might hurt, we can also work to apply gentleness when speaking. I

As we've said, those people weren't "born this way" (if they were, what use would they be as examples for us?). Rather, they were brave enough and patient enough to slowly develop themselves, to till the fertile soil of their own minds over time.

Compassion is just a way to work with a big mess, because compassion flourishes when you feel inclusive of reality, and as long as people exist, reality will be a big mess.

to engage in any path of well-being or self-development, some small part of us must already believe that we're worth developing.

Spiritual bypassing often adopts a rationale based on using absolute truth to deny or disparage relative truth.

When we separate our spiritual self from our life in the world, we create a kind of inner schism that leads to a sense of meaninglessness and isolation in our "secular" life.

It's always okay to admit you are struggling. Why

people struggle because we don't know where we belong, and we always assume that home lies somewhere other than here and now, a mistake that sets us on an exhausting commute.

DISCIPLINE DOESN'T MEAN LIMITING your freedom. It's the impetus for developing a structure to your activity, which comes from taking deadly seriously—with a strong sense of humor—the truth of interdependence.

Within the realm of mental reactions, when you know what is yours and what is someone else's, it makes it easier to help another human being, because you no longer take their confusion so personally.

Fumbling blindly for the mystical, we miss what is holy within the mundane event of walking down a city street. Interdependence only seems like a profound truth because we don't recognize it 99% of the time. While

human beings are simply not self-sufficient. We rely on each other for work, education, sustenance, friendship, art, culture, community, and love.Yet so much of the time we scurry from place to place, task to task, moment to moment, craving isolation and feigning anonymity. This is the paradox of contemporary living.

As Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche puts it, you can tell what the most important building is within a society by which is the tallest. Within ancient Europe, cathedrals often reached the most soaring heights, as did mosques in the ancient Middle East. Now, in our Western metropolises, we all bow before cathedrals of financial commerce. Our sacred values are implied by our ritualistic choices, whether we agree to them or not. We

The purveyor of violence always hurts himself before he hurts anyone else. When

An important purpose of the practice of nonviolence is to constantly debunk the myth that there's a way to make it through life without ever having to feel pain or discomfort.

in order to fully awaken, we have to dissolve the false dichotomy between secular and spiritual truths, and start to view ourselves, each other, and the world we share as sacred, 24/7/365.

For a committed practitioner, forming a healthy relationship between meditation practice and the cultivation of awareness throughout the day is crucial. Otherwise, the momentum and pace of the rest of our life overwhelms whatever insights we are able to experience through formal meditation. Ideally,

There is no surer sign of a society in decline than one that builds prisons faster than schools, as happens in many American states. In