Quotes About Change

When we resist change, it's called suffering. But when we can completely let go and not struggle against it, when we can embrace the groundlessness of our situation and relax into its dynamic quality, that's called enlightenment

Relaxing with the present moment, relaxing with hopelessness, relaxing with death, not resisting the fact that things end, that things pass, that things have no lasting substance, that everything is changing all the time—that is the basic message.

The truth you believe in and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.

Interrupting our destructive habits and awakening our heart is the work of a lifetime.

Nothing in its essence is one way or the other.

There are many changes in the weather of a day.

Live your life as an experiment.

When there's a big disappointment, we don't know if that's the end of the story. It may be just the beginning of a great adventure.

The trick is to keep exploring and not bail out, even when we find out that something is not what we thought. That's what we're going to discover again and again and again. Nothing is what we thought.

Impermanence is a principle of harmony. When we don't struggle against it, we are in harmony with reality.

Usually we feel that there's a large problem and we have to fix it. The instruction is to stop. Do something unfamiliar. Do anything besides rushing off in the same old direction, up to the same old tricks.

IMPERMANENCE means that the essence of life is fleeting. Some people are so skillful at their mindfulness practice that they can actually see each and every little movement of mind—changing, changing, changing.

Every situation is a passing memory.

With the global economy in chaos and the environment of the planet at risk, with war raging and suffering escalating, it is time for each of us in our own lives to take the leap and do whatever we can to help turn things around.

Death in everyday life could also be defined as experiencing all the things that we don't want. Our marriage isn't working; our job isn't coming together. Having a relationship with death in everyday life means that we begin to be able to wait, to relax with insecurity, with panic, with embarrassment, with things not working out.

TURNING YOUR MIND toward the dharma does not bring security or confirmation. Turning your mind toward the dharma does not bring any ground to stand on. In fact, when your mind turns toward the dharma, you fearlessly acknowledge impermanence and change and begin to get the knack of hopelessness.

Resistance to unwanted circumstances has the power to keep those circumstances alive and well for a very long time.

Awakening is not a process of building ourselves up but a process of letting go. It's a process of relaxing in the middle—the paradoxical, ambiguous middle, full of potential, full of new ways of thinking and seeing—with absolutely no money-back guarantee of what will happen next.

The path is uncharted. It comes into existence moment by moment and at the same time drops away behind us. It's like riding on a train sitting backwards. We can't see where we're headed, only where we've been. This is a very encouraging teaching, because it says that the source of wisdom is whatever is going to happen to us today. The source of wisdom is whatever is happening to us right at this very instant.

And that can never be a mistake--to fly instead of staying in the nest with all the poop and everything that's in there.

We try to resist it by making things that will last—forever, we say—things that we don't have to wash, things that we don't have to iron. Somehow, in the process of trying to deny that things are always changing, we lose our sense of the sacredness of life. We tend to forget that we are part of the natural scheme of things.

Every challenge presents an opportunity for spiritual growth, whether it's a small irritation or when everything as you've known it falls apart.

When we resist change, it's called suffering. But when we can completely let go and not struggle against it, when we can embrace the groundlessness of our situation and relax into its dynamic quality, that's called enlightenment, or awakening to our true nature, to our fundamental goodness. Another word for this is freedom—freedom from struggling against the fundamental ambiguity of being human.

Sometimes you just have to let everything fall apart.