Quotes About Perspective

Whenever anything negative happens to you, there is a deep lesson concealed within it, although you may not see it at the time.

If you consider the ego to be your personal problem, that's just more ego.

How dare you serve me cold soup…." That's complaining. There is a "me" here that loves to feel personally offended by the cold soup and is going to make the most of it, a "me" that enjoys making someone wrong. The complaining we are talking about is in the service of the ego, not of change. Sometimes it becomes obvious that the ego doesn't really want change so that it can go on complaining.

Only through awareness can you see the totality of the situation or person instead of adopting one limited perspective.

There is nothing that strengthens the ego more than being right. Being right is identification with a mental position—a perspective, an opinion, a judgment, a story. For you to be right, of course, you need someone else to be wrong, and so the ego loves to make wrong in order to be right. In other words: You need to make others wrong in order to get a stronger sense of who you are.

A situation needs to be either dealt with or accepted. Why make it into a problem?

Some people get angry when they hear me say that problems are illusions.

I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind." When you reach this point, you are one step away from despair — and one step away from enlightenment.

If you are not in the state of either acceptance, enjoyment, or enthusiasm, look closely and you will find that you are creating suffering for yourself and others.

the ego likes to emphasize the 'otherness' of others

In the proximity of death, the whole concept of ownership stands revealed as ultimately meaningless.

The monks walked on in silence. Five hours later, as they were approaching the lodging temple, Ekido couldn't restrain himself any longer. 'Why did you carry that girl across the road?' he asked. 'We monks are not supposed to do things like that.' 'I put the girl down hours ago,' said Tanzan. 'Are you still carrying her?

Your life situation may be full of problems — most life situations are — but find out if you have any problem at this moment. Not tomorrow or in ten minutes, but now. Do you have a problem now?

The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about

You are only allowed to see a sanitized version of death.

Do you truly know what is positive and what is negative? Do you have the total picture? There have been many people for whom limitation, failure, loss, illness, or pain in whatever form turned out to be their greatest teacher. It taught them to let go of false self-images and superficial ego-dictated goals and desires. It gave them depth, humility, and compassion. It made them more real.

When you are full of problems, there is no room for anything new to enter, no room for a solution.

When the dimension of space is lost or rather not known, the things of the world assume an absolute importance, a seriousness and heaviness that in truth they do not have.

Making yourself right and others wrong is one of the principal egoic mind patterns, one of the main forms of unconsciousness.

In Shakespeare's words, "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

When you realize it's not personal, there is no longer a compulsion to react as if it were. By

Life isn't as serious as my mind makes it out to be.

Most people don't inhabit a living reality, but a conceptualized one.

If you think you are so enlightened," Ram Dass said, "go and spend a week with your parents.