Quotes from Ezra Bayda

We wonder how people can't see the most obvious things about themselves, yet we forget those people are us.

Our core beliefs need to be seen for what they are: deeply held assumptions about reality that our particular life circumstances have conditioned us to accept as absolute truth.

To avoid experiencing the anxious quiver at the core of our being, where we might feel the chaos of uncertainty or the pain of unhealed wounds, we weave a protective cocoon of beliefs and identities.

Experiencing, rather than trying to have special experiences, is where real freedom lies.

Attachment is always a barrier to real appreciation and happiness, because it's based on the illusion that some external element can make our core pain go away. But when we're willing to expose ourselves to the pain we've been avoiding, the power of attachment fades and the path to a genuine life becomes more accessible.

Having gratitude for being alive, being able to experience an inner delight in the moment, is one of the essential roots of happiness.

A wise person once said, "Anything worth doing is worth doing half-assed.

We think we need to be able to trust, just as we think we need to be able to be loved. But we have it backwards. As adults, we don't need to be loved. The only real emotional need, if we want to call it that, is to love. To love is our essence; it is who we are.

To know that we don't know, yet to keep practicing, is the way we learn to go deeper.

We must first understand that both our pain and our suffering are truly our path, our teacher. While this understanding doesn't necessarily entail liking our pain or our suffering, it does liberate us from regarding them as enemies we have to conquer. Once we have this understanding, which is a fundamental change in how we relate to life, we can begin to deal with the layers of pain and suffering that make up so much of our existence.

In surrendering to our deepest fears, we put ourselves in touch with the fundamental awareness of just being—the true ground that is always available to us.

There are people we laugh at because they can't see the most obvious things about themselves. Well, those people are us!

The first phase—the Me Phase of practice—involves clarifying all the ways we're run by the self-centered mind. It includes uncovering our most basic beliefs, observing our typical emotional reactions and patterns of behavior, and perhaps most important of all, becoming very familiar with our fears.

To "know thyself" has been a pivotal part of most spiritual traditions; here we will be considering it in depth in order to free ourselves from the self-centered drama of "me.

The second phase—the phase of Being Awareness—intensifies as we become less involved with "me" and more concerned with cultivating a larger sense of what life is.

The third phase—the phase of Being Kindness—has to do with learning to live from the awakened heart.