"It is the nature of our unawakened minds to be bothered about something."

Money, sex, war, karma

"A sense of self is inevitably uncomfortable since, being a psychological construct, it is groundless, and the usual ways it tries to ground itself to feel more "real" just make things worse."

Money, sex, war, karma

"Since the crucial concern for Buddhism is always dukka, the most important thing is avoiding sex that harms others or causes them pain."

Money, sex, war, karma

"Awakening too is a shunya concept. Nirvana is not something objectively real, for the distinction we make between samsara and nirvana is another example of dualistic thinking that we project onto our experience. Instead, Nagarjuna referes to nirvana as "the end of prapanca (conceptual elaborations)", which includes the end of such dualistic ways of thinking. I experience the world as it really is when I let go of the ways of thinking that I am normally stuck in.

Nagarjuna never actually claims that "samsara is nirvana". Rather, he says that no diferrence can be found between them. The two terms simply refer to different ways of experiencing the world. Nirvana is not another realm or dimension but the deep peace experienced when our mental turmoil ends, because the objects that we have been tryng to identify with - including the sense of self - are realized to be shunya. If things arise and pass away according to conditions, they have no reality of their own that we can cling to. When we do not cling to names and concepts, we can experience things as they are. This includes buddhist names and concepts, even the concept of nirvana and the very notion of  "a Buddha".

Lower truths are needed to point to the "higher truth". Yet, as Wittgenstein put it, after you have climbed up the ladder you must kick it away. Fortunately, buddhism is very good at helping us let go of such ladders."

Money, sex, war, karma

"People confuse two different levels of truth, the relative (or conventional) and the ultimate (or absolute). The conventional is not ultimately true, but it's needed to point to the ultimate, and the concept of shunyata is one of the conventional truths that help us realize the ultimate, which is something that cannot be expressed in words. In other words, shunyata is itself empty: it has meaning only in relation to something that is not-empty - that is, it is useful only for pointing out that things have no self-existence, to help pry us free from our attachment to things. Ultimately, there are no such things and therefore no shunyata either. We need to let go of the concept of shunyata too, just like the Buddha's raft."

Money, sex, war, karma

"Shunyata does not mean non-existence, or a void, nor does it describe some transcendent reality such as God or Brahman. Acording to Nagarjuna, shunyata simply refers to the fact that things have no essence of self-being of their own. All things arise and pass away according to causal conditions, which means they are dependent on other things that also arise and pass away."

Money, sex, war, karma

"[Nagarjuna] does not try to replace our deluded ways of thinking with the correct way of thinking, for there is no correct understanding that we should identify with. Identifying with any conceptual understanding is what gets us into trouble. Instead, the true nature of things (including ourselves) becomes apparent when we let go of our delusions, including the ones embedded in our ordinary language. Our emotional and mental turmoil is replaced by a serenity that cannot be grasped but can be lived."

Money, sex, war, karma

"My sense of self is composed of habitual ways of thinking, feeling, acting and reacting - all of them being temporal processes, different forms that time takes."

Money, sex, war, karma

"For Buddhism our real problem isn't inability to keep living forever. The more basic problem is right here and now: that our sense of self isn't real, which gives us, again, a sense of lack that manifests as insecurity and ungroundedness. Since we don't feel real enough, and nothing we acquire ever makes us feel real enough, we long for immortality as a kind of substitute reality that can postpone the problem indefinitely."

Money, sex, war, karma

"Buddhism distinguishes two truths, the relative (conventional) truth and the ultimate (absolute) truth. Since samsara, the world of suffering, is not different from nirvana, the relative truth does not refer to a different reality than the ultimate truth does. The relative truth is the way we usually experience the world, as a collection of separate things - including us - that arise and pass away. This occurs in time that is experienced as objective and external. The ultimate truth is realizing the way things really are, that they are not separate from each other and therefore are not really things in the usual sense."

Money, sex, war, karma

"Buddhism is about awakening, which means realizing something about the constructedness of the sense of self and the nothing at its core.

Usually that void at our core is so uncomfortable that we try to evade it, by identifying with something else that might give us stability and security.

The point isn't to get rid of the self: that's not possible, for there never has been a self. Nor do we want to get rid of the sense of self: that would be a rather unpleasant type of mental retardation. Rather, what we work toward is a more permeable, less dualistic sense of self, which is more aware of, and more comfortable with, its empty constructedness."

Money, sex, war, karma

"If my sense of self is actually composed of habitual ways of perceiving, feeling, thinking and behaving, then karma isn't something I have, it's what I am.

I change my karma by changing who I am: by reconstructing my habitual ways of perceiving, feeling, thinking and behaving.

Karma is about how habitual ways of thinking and acting tend to create predictable types of situations."

Money, sex, war, karma  

"The past and the future are obviously thought created, since all remnants of what has been or what will be cannot be found except through rumination.

Nothing could possibly be outside Now because it is the only place life can occur.

The closer we move into Now, the more spontaneously awareness arises, until finally we see that full awareness and Now are one and the same."

Stepping out of self-deception - p. 216, 217

"We can think of ourselves spiritually as being somewhere on a continuum between one and zero. One is the full embodiment of the "I" separate from all things, and zero is emptiness and the unconditioned. Spiritual practice is supposed to move us from one to zero.

This continuum can also be thought of in terms of time, with zero abiding within the timeless and one firmly entrenched within the ideas of past and future."

Stepping out of self-deception - p. 215

"Buddhism in its final summation is about abiding in the Now, and buddhist practice encourages and cultivates skillful states of mind to make that entry easier. It is a straightforward process of surrendering that occurs when the mind is calm, serene and equanimous, because those states arise from a lack of mental resistance and bring the person of awareness closer to Now."

Stepping out of self-deception - p. 215

"A mature relationship with life no longer looks for perfection within form.

If we become judgemental, we will find fault or praise, action will be set in motion, sides will be taken, wars will be fought, someone excluded and other included. Form is imperfect by definition, and manifestation will follow suit."

Stepping out of self-deception - p. 215

"The Buddha says, "However we perceive a fact, the truth is other than this", and this may be his final pronouncement on maturity. He seems to be telling us there is no correct mental orientation to experience, and all perceptions are only relatively true. He is asking us to release all ideas that assert a polarity of views. "Nonidentification with anything has been declared by the Blessed One"."

Stepping out of self-deception - p. 214

"Spiritual practice is discerning the difference between the absolute reality and the mind's imposed reality."

Stepping out of self-deception - p. 183

"The mind attempts to assume spiritual authority over the heart. The leadership of the "I" makes a compelling case as it measures what it has, figures out what it needs, sets down an agenda, and progresses toward its goal. It knows exactly where it is going, what it still lacks, and how to achieve the desired result, all in quantifiable terms. But if the mind has never been where it is going, how could it possibly have any idea how to get there, or even what "getting there" looks like? The mind has a blueprint for its salvation but all its maps are in abstract form, and over time we give less and less credibility to anything but the wisdom derived from direct experience."

Stepping out of self-deception - p. 168

"We" do not have a mind. The mind has created the sense of "you" and "me" from the way it perceives reality. "We" are a part of the mental processing of the mind. The thoughts of the mind and the sense-of-I are not two separate events. We exist only because the mind thinks us into creation.

Stepping out of self-deception - p. 166

"Stop trying to be mindful and relax into the awareness that existed before thought, and not the mindfulness that existed driven by thought."

Stepping out of self-deception - p. 164

"The presence of the watcher indicates that awareness is now looking at the mind rather than through the mind.

The fact that awareness can be an objective observer of the mind means it is not a mental process and therefore does not originate from the mind."

Stepping out of self-deception - p. 160

"Thought holds an alternative to what is. Thought says, "This doesn't have to be this way, other possibilities would improve this situation." Thinking forms a horizontal view that is constructed from the endless choices conceived by the mind, and we invest in the truth of those possibilities as a way out of Now. But reality does not hold a substitute for Now; there is only what is. In order to surrender, we have to see the choices offered by thought as pure fabrication. When we perceive the unreality of thought, the view and sense-of-self constructed from these thoughts end. Surrender is the collapsing of alternatives into reality."

Stepping out of self-deception - p. 126

"The point is to abide with the reality of here and now without mental influences."

Stepping out of self-deception - p. 116

"We are not going anywhere or becoming anyone."

Stepping out of self-deception - p. 91

"The sense-of-self forms conclusions because it fears living within the ambiguity of a question.

As we journey along our spiritual path, we become more willing to move from mental certainty to the open amazement of not knowing."

Stepping out of self-deception - p. 64

"All emotions are observed as experiences only, pointing nowhere, implicating no one, and signifying nothing.

Emotions need observation and allowance, not our analysis or fixation.

We allow the emotion to return to nothing by adding nothing to it all along the way."

Stepping out of self-deception - p. 58, 60

"There is no single cause for any event. Events arise dependent upon many factors, with everything in the universe colluding to make a single incident occur."

Stepping out of self-deception - p. 55

"Thought is often a reaction to an emotion and is an attempt to justify the experience of an emotion.

The thinking is trying to solve the emotion, but the emotion is unconscious, so the thinking continues to spin out of control. An emotion is not caused by an external event; the mind assigns an emotion to an external event. The confusion is resolved when we focus on the emotion and let it be what it is, while at the same time releasing the need to think our way out of the emotion."

Stepping out of self-deception - p. 55

"The sense-of-self comes into play when we think reality can be altered.

The mind gives birth to the sense-of-self when we are disputing the conditions of reality." 

Stepping out of self-deception - p. 49

"Suffering is the desire for more choices than reality offers, but reality is without options."

Stepping out of self-deception - p. 45

"The point of meditation is to see what we are bringing to experience, and then to see that whatever we bring is extra and needs to be discarded."

Stepping out of self-deception - p. 42

"Our true nature is wordless awareness."

Stepping out of self-deception - p. 37