Quotes About Introspection

The practice is compassionate inquiry into our moods, our emotions, our thoughts.

Todos nosotros somos en ocasiones un caso perdido.

The old joke is that a Buddhist is someone who is either meditating or feeling guilty about not meditating.

We start with ourselves. We make ourselves right or we make ourselves wrong, every day, every week, every month and year of our lives. We feel that we have to be right so that we can feel good. We don't want to be wrong because then we'll feel bad. But we could be more compassionate toward all these parts of ourselves.

A thoroughly good relationship with ourselves results in being still, which doesn't mean we don't run and jump and dance about. It means there's no compulsiveness. We don't overwork, overeat, oversmoke, overseduce. In short, we begin to stop causing harm.

problem." On the contrary, the idea isn't to get rid of ego but actually to begin to take an interest in ourselves, to investigate and be inquisitive about ourselves. The path of meditation and the path of our lives altogether has to do with curiosity, inquisitiveness. The

We point our fingers at the wrongdoers, but we ourselves are mirror images; everyone is outraged at everyone else's wrongness.

Yesterday I talked about cultivating precision, gentleness, and openess, and described how the meditation technique helps us to remember the qualities that we already possess.

Nobody else can really begin to sort out for you what do you accept and what to reject in terms of what wakes you up and what makes you fall asleep. No one else can really sort out for you what do you accept - what opens up your world – and what to reject – but seems to keep you going round and round in some kind of repetitive misery.

Giving up hope is encouragement to stick with yourself, to make friends with yourself, to not run away from yourself, to return to the bare bones, no matter what's going on. Fear

Of the two witnesses, hold the principal one" might arise. Of the two witnesses—self and other—we're the only one who knows the full truth about ourselves.

Things like disappointment and anxiety are messengers telling us that we're about to go into unknown territory.

we are all a paradoxical bundle of rich potential that consists of both neurosis and wisdom.

Finding the courage to go to the places that scare us cannot happen without compassionate inquiry into the workings of ego.

When you do tonglen, you invite the pain in. That's what opens your eyes, even though that's what shamatha is all about—seeing pain, seeing pleasure, seeing everything with gentleness and accuracy, without judging it, without pushing it away, becoming more open to it.

Even though there are so many teachings, so many meditations, so many instructions, the basic point of it all is just to learn to be extremely honest and also wholehearted about what exists in your mind—thoughts, emotions, bodily sensations, the whole thing that adds up to what we call "me" or "I." Nobody else can really begin to sort out for you what to accept and what to reject in terms of what wakes you up and what makes you fall asleep.

When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it's bottomless, that it doesn't have any resolution, that this heart is huge, vast and limitless.

Let the hard things in life break you. Let them effect you. Let them change you. Let these hard moments inform you. Let this pain be your teacher. The experiences of your life are trying to tell you something about yourself. Don't cop out on that. Don't run away and hide under your covers. Lean into it.

Would you consider what I call the "inner eye" which opens for some of us, though not always when we want it or expect it – would you consider the inner eye as one of the sensory nerves?

Let's say that matters hadn't gone quite right with you, I mean personal matters, would you be able to find words to say exactly what was wrong?' 'I'm afraid so, yes, I would.' 'That might be useful, of course.' 'Like manufacturers' instructions. In case of failure, try words.

Annie - although she also knew that those who don't speak have to pay it off in thinking - was resolved on silence. Whatever happened, and after all she was obliged to see Mr brooks two or three times every day, though she by no means looked forward to it, feeling herself more truly alive when she could picture him steadily without seeing him - whatever happened, he needn't know how daft she was.

I don't know that men are better judges than women, said Florence, but they spend much less time regretting their decisions.

Ze wist maar al te goed, terwijl ze daar in het doffe namiddaglicht zat met de potsierlijke verzameling kommen en schalen voor haar uitgestald, dat eenzaamheid tot eenzaamheid sprak en dat hij een rechtstreeks appél op haar gevoelens deed.

Forever, reading has been central, the necessary fix, the support sustem. (...) She read to discover how not to be Charlotte, how to escape the prison of her own mind, how to expand, and experience.