Lama Surya Das · 414 pages
Rating: (11.3K votes)
“Breath by breath, let go of fear, expectation, anger, regret, cravings, frustration, fatigue. Let go of the need for approval. Let go of old judgments and opinions. Die to all that, and fly free. Soar in the freedom of desirelessness.
Let go. Let Be. See through everything and be free, complete, luminous, at home -- at ease.”
― Lama Surya Das, quote from Awakening the Buddha Within
“before speaking, notice what motivates your words.”
― Lama Surya Das, quote from Awakening the Buddha Within
“Enlightenment is not about becoming divine. Instead it's about becoming more fully human. . . . It is the end of ignorance.”
― Lama Surya Das, quote from Awakening the Buddha Within
“I've also learned that you don't always get to pick the people with whom you travel the journey. You sometimes may think you do, but don't be deceived. And the corollary of that - and this was my real lesson - is that you start to realize that you can love even the people you don't like and must love and help everyone.”
― Lama Surya Das, quote from Awakening the Buddha Within
“It is not the outer objects that entangle us. It is the inner clinging that entangles us." - Tilopa”
― Lama Surya Das, quote from Awakening the Buddha Within
“You don’t need to see different things, but rather to see things differently.”
― Lama Surya Das, quote from Awakening the Buddha Within
“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded. —RALPH WALDO EMERSON”
― Lama Surya Das, quote from Awakening the Buddha Within
“You are in charge of your own karma, your own life, your own spiritual path, and your own liberation, just as I am in charge of mine.”
― Lama Surya Das, quote from Awakening the Buddha Within
“The thought manifests as the word; The word manifests as the deed; The deed develops into habit; And habit hardens into character; So watch the thought and its ways with care, And let it spring from love Born out of concern for all beings…. As the shadow follows the body, as we think, so we become. —FROM THE DHAMMAPADA (SAYINGS OF THE BUDDHA)”
― Lama Surya Das, quote from Awakening the Buddha Within
“Don't do things that everyone can do,Do things that everyone cannot do”
― Lama Surya Das, quote from Awakening the Buddha Within
“Tips and Pointers for Building a Spiritual Life from Scratch Pray Meditate Be aware / Stay awake Bow Practice yoga Feel Chant and sing Breathe and smile Relax / Enjoy / Laugh / Play Create / Envision Let go / Forgive / Accept Walk / Exercise / Move Work / Serve / Contribute Listen / Learn / Inquire Consider / Reflect Cultivate oneself / Enhance competencies Cultivate contentment Cultivate flexibility Cultivate friendship and collaboration Open up / Expand / Include Lighten up Dream Celebrate and appreciate Give thanks Evolve Love Share / Give / Receive Walk softly / Live gently Expand / Radiate / Dissolve Simplify Surrender / Trust Be born anew”
― Lama Surya Das, quote from Awakening the Buddha Within
“Everything is available in the natural state,”
― Lama Surya Das, quote from Awakening the Buddha Within
“To just be--to be--amidst all doings, achievings, and becomings. This is the natural state of mind, or original, most fundamental state of being. This is unadulterated Buddha-nature. This is like finding our balance.”
― Lama Surya Das, quote from Awakening the Buddha Within
“People sometimes find Buddhism pessimistic, saying there is too much talk about death. It’s essential to understand that Buddhists don’t contemplate death because they are morbid or depressed; they focus on death, mortality, and human frailty as a means of better understanding and appreciating life.”
― Lama Surya Das, quote from Awakening the Buddha Within
“New karma is being made all the time. When one acts with a positive motivation, goodness is furthered. When one acts out of negative motivation, negativity is furthered. "We can recondition ourselves to act with wisdom. The important thing to understand here is that you are not a victim. You are your own master. 'As you sow, so shall you reap.”
― Lama Surya Das, quote from Awakening the Buddha Within
Lama Surya Das
Born place: New York, The United States
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“For a long time, as I waited for her to return, I believed she knew I was there behind the trees and that this was my doing. That she knew I would come. For who else could it have been?”
― Aminatta Forna, quote from The Hired Man
“I could almost hear the characters inside, murmuring and jostling, impatient for me to open the cover and let them out.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, quote from A Gathering Light
“The root destruction of religion in the country, which throughout the twenties and thirties was one of the most important goals of the GPU-NKVD, could be realized only by mass arrests of Orthodox believers. Monks and nuns, whose black habits had been a distinctive feature of Old Russian life, were intensively rounded up on every hand, placed under arrest, and sent into exile. They arrested and sentenced active laymen. The circles kept getting bigger, as they raked in ordinary believers as well, old people and particularly women, who were the most stubborn believers of all and who, for many long years to come, would be called 'nuns' in transit prisons and in camps.
True, they were supposedly being arrested and tried not for their actual faith but for openly declaring their convictions and for bringing up their children in the same spirit. As Tanya Khodkevich wrote:
You can pray freely
But just so God alone can hear.
(She received a ten-year sentence for these verses.) A person convinced that he possessed spiritual truth was required to conceal it from his own children! In the twenties the religious education of children was classified as a political crime under Article 58-10 of the Code--in other words, counterrevolutionary propaganda! True, one was permitted to renounce one's religion at one's trial: it didn't often happen but it nonetheless did happen that the father would renounce his religion and remain at home to raise the children while the mother went to the Solovetsky Islands. (Throughout all those years women manifested great firmness in their faith.) All persons convicted of religious activity received 'tenners,' the longest term then given.
(In those years, particularly in 1927, in purging the big cities for the pure society that was coming into being, they sent prostitutes to the Solovetsky Islands along with the 'nuns.' Those lovers of a sinful earthly life were given three-year sentences under a more lenient article of the Code. The conditions in prisoner transports, in transit prisons, and on the Solovetsky Islands were not of a sort to hinder them from plying their merry trade among the administrators and the convoy guards. And three years later they would return with laden suitcases to the places they had come from. Religious prisoners, however, were prohibited from ever returning to their children and their home areas.)”
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, quote from The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, Volume 1
“Here." Sam came over, stripped down to his boxers. "Hunch forward and put your head down."
Robin looked at him. "My safe word is monkey.”
― Suzanne Brockmann, quote from All Through the Night
“Not my manner of thinking but the manner of thinking of others has been the source of my unhappiness.”
― Marquis de Sade, quote from Justine, Philosophy in the Bedroom, and Other Writings
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