Quotes from Steve Hagen

We might think that by tossing a ball we initiate an action, but this is merely an arbitrary point in a beginningless line of action.

H]ow can there be experience without a self to have that experience? We don't need … an explanation, … that's all the self is: an explanation of experience.

The moment that we hold some solidified idea about Reality- rather than relying on direct perception of the world- we inevitably give rise to anxiety and fear.

We imagine that things come into existence, endure for a while, and then pass out of existence

A buddha recognizes that anything put into speech is never completely reliable.

There's nothing you can find - … nothing you can even imagine – that doesn't originate, develop, or exist in relation to other things.

Most of the time, … we … are at best only partially engaged in the moment. … [O]ften [we are] lost in thought or reverie – barely here at all. (…) How often we miss the moment simply because we're not here. We tune out much of the world – and much of ourselves as well[.]

Throughout most of our lives, we're so caught up in this and that, rushing through these wonderful distractions and stages, that we don't (or can't) take the time to settle into the mellow light that's always there and to let freshness suffuse the frame. Thus we miss this simple matter of just doing and living fully.

Just as we conceive of a self and counter this notion with a non-self, … we are also taken in by another set of opposing concepts – existence and non-existence.

We commonly see things 'out there' and go after them. Our mind is thus characterised by division and separation.

Whatever you can point to – a physical thing, a person, a thought, an emotion – … [a]ll of them change. Even memory shows constant flux and change.

even refer to?

By our very attempt to grasp an explanation, we leave things out.

T]he self is … a concept formed out of our desire to get a handle on things rather than accept … experience as real but ungraspable.

There is only … eternal arising and ceasing – but … no thing that comes or goes.

Don't worry about figuring out anything. It is not necessary to figure anything out, or to theorize, or even look out there. You need only to look at your assumptions, your unexamined beliefs.

We are like music. … Music exists … in constant flux and flow. Once the movement stops, the music is no more.

this desire to hold on, to somehow stop change in its tracks, is the greatest source of woe and horror and trouble in our lives.

If we believe in … an everlasting self, it's tantamount to claiming that we have existed before all else came into being. We may as well fancy ourselves as being the cause of all creation.

If we are the stream, what is it that experiences the flux, the flow, the change? … [T]here is no particular thing … having an experience. There is experience, but no experiencer. … [P]erception, but no perceiver. … [C]onsciousness, but no self that can be located or identified.

good' crystallised … breeds arrogance and hostility

One day, soon after the Buddha's enlightenment, a man saw the Buddha walking toward him. The man had not heard of the Buddha, but he could see that there was something different about the man who was approaching, so he was moved to ask, "Are you a god?

How can a hard and fast view of a world that is never hard and fast possibly be accurate?

O]nce in a while there's that fleeting moment when the kindest thing you can do for another is to utter a severe word or a sharp observation that may hurt momentarily;