Quotes About Realization

Never worry about theory as long as the machinery does what it's supposed to do

A buddha is the butterfly that finally emerges from the cocoon of the human life-form. (p. 63)

It comes down to practice, and practice, after all, is conduct in keeping with Right Views. Of course, Right Views are not merely opinions, not even Sk?kyamuni's opinions, but are views that accord with this realization: we are all in this together and we aren't here very long. Let's take care of one another while we can.

You and I come forth as possibilities of essential nature, alone and independent as stars, yet reflecting and being reflected by all things. My life and yours are the unfolding realization of total aloneness and total intimacy.

In realizing all this, we understand how we are just bundles of sense perceptions, with the substance of a dream or a bubble on the surface of the sea. The vanity of the usual kind of self-preoccupation becomes clear, and we are freed from selfish concerns in our enjoyment of the universe as it is, and of our own previously unsuspected depths.

Clover is incapable of not nurturing. It can't do anything but nurture. Shakyamuni is capable of not nurturing. With a poisonous thought, he is a poisonous person. With an enlightened thought, he is an enlightened person. With his great realization, he is unlikely to slip back into poisonous ways, but he could, for he is human.

I'm not usually sold on epiphanies. I am more interested in the opposite experience: not those rare moments of startling insight or realization, but-what I suspect are more common-those sudden flashes of anxious confusion and bewilderment.

There are certain disturbing things we simply would rather not realize. Because it is a preprogrammed and mindless method of responding, automatic consistency can supply a safe hiding place from those troubling realizations. Sealed within the fortress walls of rigid consistency, we can be impervious to the sieges of reason.

RICH I'm lamenting. I've lost my innocence. CROMWELL You lost that some time ago. If you've only just noticed, it can't have been very important to you.

Looking back on a happy life, one realizes that one was not happy all the time.

There comes a morning in life when you wake up a new person; that is to say, you wake up the same person but you realize it's your own fault.

Eventually you realize that your whole life up to now has been preparation, and you begin to suspect that the rest might be preparation, too.

Practice the precept: find without seeking

Create expectations to fulfil them.

Stung by the splendor of a sudden thought.

On a day like today I am stung by the splendor of a sudden thought.

Lenin, albeit tardily, realized that Stalin's personality very much mattered.

Hence the abolitionist-minded intelligentsia, along with liberal elements in Russian society and within the bureaucracy, inclined not toward a constitutionalist program, realization of which would only strengthen the political influence of the landowners, but to the idea of a progressive autocracy.

Reading and thinking about [new ideas] won't work. You must put them into effect.

Most of us spend our lives avoiding the thought of death. Instead, the inevitability of death should be continually on our minds. Understanding the shortness of life fills us with a sense of purpose and urgency to realize our goals. Training ourselves to confront and accept this reality makes it easier to manage the inevitable setbacks, separations, and crises in life. [...] By becoming deeply aware of our mortality, we intensify our experience of every aspect of life.

I feel as if I have walked into a mirrored room and glimpsed myself from an unfamiliar angle for the first time. Is that really what I look like? Is that who I am?

Once in a lifetime You get to have it all But you never knew you had it Till you go and lose it all.

Everything is theoretically impossible, until it is done.

Nothing has happened until it happens