Quotes About Insight

Why, you poor things—didn't you know? Knowledge and understanding aren't props for one another. Knowledge is a pile of bricks, and understanding is a way of building. Build for me!

Understanding means throwing away your knowledge.

When you begin to see that your enemy is suffering, that is the beginning of insight.

A real love letter is made of insight, understanding, and compassion. Otherwise it's not a love letter. A true love letter can produce a transformation in the other person, and therefore in the world. But before it produces a transformation in the other person, it has to produce a transformation within us. Some letters may take the whole of our lifetime to write.

Awareness is like the sun. When it shines on things, they are transformed.

Guarding knowledge is not a good way to understand. Understanding means to throw away your knowledge.

When our beliefs are based on our own direct experience of reality and not on notions offered by others, no one can remove these beliefs from us.

We who have touched war have a duty to bring the truth about war to those who have not had a direct experience of it. We are the light at the tip of the candle. It is really hot, but it has the power of shining and illuminating. If we practice mindfulness, we will know how to look deeply into the nature of war and, with our insight, wake people up so that together we can avoid repeating the same horrors again and again.

Love has no meaning without understanding

He saw that the key to liberation would be to break through ignorance and to enter deeply into the heart of reality and attain a direct experience of it. Such knowledge would not be the knowledge of the intellect, but of direct experience.

Whether this moment is happy or not depends on you. It`s you who makes the moment happy, not the moment that makes you happy. With mindfulness, concentration, and insight, any moment can become a happy moment.

Understanding is like water flowing in a stream. Wisdom and knowledge are solid and can block our understanding

Stillness is the foundation of understanding and insight.

Everyone wants to be happy, and there is a strong energy in us pushing us toward what we think will make us happy. But we may suffer a lot because of this. We need the insight that position, revenge, wealth, fame, or possessions are, more often than not, obstacles to our happiness. We need to cultivate the wish to be free of these things so we can enjoy the wonders of life that are always available — the blue sky, the trees, our beautiful children.

Much of our suffering comes from wrong perceptions. To remove that hurt, we have to remove our wrong perception.

My aim is not to give you knowledge. My aim is to help you break free from your views.

Breath remains the vehicle to unite body and mind and to open the gate to wisdom.

Fear is based on ignorance. Lack of understanding is also a primary cause of anger.

Shallow understanding accompanies shallow compassion. Great understanding goes with great compassion.

The miracle is not to walk on water or in thin air, but to walk on Earth. Walk in such a way that you become fully alive and joy and happiness are possible. That is the miracle that everyone can perform.... If you have mindfulness, concentration, and insight then every step you make on this Earth is performing a miracle.

Looking deeply means observing something or someone with so much concentration that the distinction between observer and observed disappears.

Attachment to views, attachment to ideas, attachment to perceptions are the biggest obstacle to the truth

Whether we are happy or whether we suffer depends largely on our perceptions. It is important to look deeply into our perceptions and recognize their source.

The way to suffer well and be happy is to stay in touch with what is actually going on; in doing so, you will gain liberating insights into the true nature of suffering and of joy. NO