Quotes About Awakening

To stay with that shakiness—to stay with a broken heart, with a rumbling stomach, with the feeling of hopelessness and wanting to get revenge—that is the path of true awakening. Sticking with that uncertainty, getting the knack of relaxing in the midst of chaos, learning not to panic—this is the spiritual path.

THE DHARMA—the Buddha's teaching—is about letting go of the story line and opening to what is: to the people in our life, to the situations we're in, to our thoughts, to our emotions. We have a certain life, and whatever life we're in is a vehicle for waking up.

From this point of view, the only time we ever know what's really going on is when the rug's been pulled out and we can't find anywhere to land. We use these situations either to wake ourselves up or to put ourselves to sleep.

Life's work is to wake up, to let the things that enter into the circle wake you up rather than put you to sleep. The only way to do this is to open, be curious, and develop some sense of sympathy for everything that comes along

I learned today that life is very precious. Even when we're determined to block the magic, it will get through and wake us up.

Every time you're willing to acknowledge your thoughts, let them go, and come back to the freshness of the present moment, you're sowing seeds of wakefulness in your unconscious.

We think that if we just meditated enough or jogged enough or ate perfect food, everything would be perfect. But from the point of view of someone who is awake, that's death. Seeking security or perfection, rejoicing in feeling confirmed and whole, self-contained and comfortable, is some kind of death. It doesn't have any fresh air. There's no room for something to come in and interrupt all that. We are killing the moment by controlling our experience.

Meditation practice is how we discover basic goodness and learn to cultivate bodhichitta. With this view, practice, and activity, even the most mundane situation becomes a vehicle for awakening.

the only time we ever know what's really going on is when the rug's been pulled out and we can't find anywhere to land. We use these situations either to wake ourselves up or to put ourselves to sleep. Right now—in the very instant of groundlessness—is the seed of taking care of those who need our care and of discovering our goodness.

By the very act of arguing, you awake the patient's reason; and once it is awake, who can foresee the result?

My people will sleep for one hundred years, but when they awake, it will be the artists who give them their spirit back.

Inspiration is an awakening, a quickening of all man's faculties, and it is manifested in all high artistic achievements.

One does not practice meditation to become a great meditator. We meditate to wake up and live, to become skilled at the art of living.

The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards.

Works of art should be stimulating. They should wake people up rather than acting like a sedative.

A good piece of art should make a revolution inside you.

The rain is sharp today, as you shock me sane.

I have found my way, step by step, proceeding from touch points that have emerged, some through conscious choice and some through dream state discovery.

Everybody was sorta going to sleep twards the end of 1983, and I felt that they had to be woken up!

The most important thing is to know how to awaken in the still undeveloped masses an intelligent attitude towards religious questions and an intelligent criticism of religions.

Somehow you drift along on the river, and one day you wake up and you're someplace you don't want to be, with someone you realize you don't know.

open your eyes for us Ã¢â'¬Â¦ it's not too exciting

Morning comes like a scream through a pinhole.

He remained, weeks after awakening, in that period of early-morning consciousness that allows easy re-entry to dreaming. His limbs still tingled with the residue of sleep, and most days he wanted badly to allow it to overtake him again.