Matt > Matt's Quotes

“The hardworking poor should receive wages and bread.”
― Rüdiger Safranski, Goethe: Life as a Work of Art

“It is rather a healthy habit pattern that you have consciously and voluntarily chosen to impose upon yourself because you recognize its superiority to your present behavior.”
― Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

“Learning to look at each second as if it were the first and only second in the universe is essential in vipassana meditation.”
― Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

“protective cocoon. That is not living, but is premature death. The way to deal with danger is to know approximately how much of it there is, where it is likely to be found, and how to deal with it when it arises.”
― Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

“This sort of intuition can only occur when you disengage the logic circuits from the problem and give the deep mind the opportunity to cook up the solution. The”
― Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

“The meditator’s intention is to purge her own mind of anger, prejudice, and ill will, and she is actively engaged in the process of getting rid of greed, tension, and insensitivity. Those are the very items that obstruct her compassion for others.”
― Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

“Never mind what I have been taught. Forget about theories and prejudices and stereotypes. I want to understand the true nature of life.”
― Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

“We spend all of our energies trying to make ourselves feel better, trying to bury our fears, endlessly seeking security.”
― Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

“but rather as a set of propositions for each individual to investigate for him- or herself.”
― Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

“we train ourselves to ignore the constant impulses to be more comfortable, and we dive into reality instead. The irony of it is that real peace comes only when you”
― Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

“Place no head above your own.” By this he meant, don’t just accept somebody else’s word. See for yourself. We want you to apply this attitude to every word”
― Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

“we try mentally to grab onto it or push it away. That sets the worry response in motion.”
― Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

“Every evil deed, every example of heartlessness in the world, stems directly from this false sense of “me” as distinct from everything else.”
― Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

“don’t get distracted by your expectations about the results.”
― Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

“Be gentle with yourself. Be kind to yourself. You may not be perfect, but you are all you’ve got to work with.”
― Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

“The process of becoming who you will be begins first with the total acceptance of who you are.”
― Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

“Don’t think. See.”
― Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

“Don’t dwell upon contrasts. Differences do exist between people, but dwelling upon them is a dangerous process.”
― Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

“comparisons, if any, lead to feelings of kinship rather than of estrangement. Breathing”
― Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

“Feeling is one of the seven universal mental factors. The other six are contact, perception, attention, concentration, life force, and volition.”
― Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

“Both of them, alone, are limited. But when the disabled person climbs on the shoulders of the blind man, together they can travel and achieve their goals easily.”
― Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

“Our mind is analogous to a cup of muddy water. The longer you keep a cup of muddy water still, the more the mud settles down and the water will be seen clearly.”
― Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

“The way out of a trap is to study the trap itself, learn how it is built.”
― Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

“Pain exists in the universe; some measure of it is unavoidable. Learning to deal with it is not pessimism, but a very pragmatic form of optimism.”
― Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

“Pain is inevitable, suffering is not. Pain and suffering are two different animals.”
― Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

“The actual experience lies beyond the words and above the symbols.”
― Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

“With this ability, one sees things without condemnation or judgment.”
― Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

“There is no clinging to the pleasant, no fleeing from the unpleasant. Mindfulness treats all experiences equally, all thoughts equally, all feelings equally. Nothing is suppressed. Nothing”
― Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

“If you are remembering your second-grade teacher, that is memory. When you then become aware that you are remembering your second-grade teacher, that is mindfulness. If you then conceptualize the process and say to yourself, “Oh, I am remembering,” that is thinking.”
― Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

“Van der Poel discovered—in addition to Buteyko’s diagnoses—that people with chronic fatigue, burnout, fibromyalgia and myalgic encephalomyelitis also breathe more rapidly or deeply than is necessary.”
― Wim Hof, The Way of the Iceman: How the Wim Hof Method Creates Radiant Long-term Health—Using the Science and Secrets of Breath Control, Cold-Training and Commitment