Patrick Barker

“Common to all schools of thought, from Sri Lanka to Tibet, the unifying theme of the Buddhist approach is this remarkable imperative: “Pay precise attention, moment by moment, to exactly what you are experiencing, right now, separating out your reactions from the raw sensory events.” This is what is meant by bare attention: just the bare facts, an exact registering, allowing things to speak for themselves as if seen for the first time, distinguishing any reactions from the core event.”
― Mark Epstein, Thoughts without a Thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective

“As cartoonist Jules Feiffer puts it: “I grew up to have my father’s looks, my father’s speech patterns, my father’s posture, my father’s walk, my father’s opinions and my mother’s contempt for my father.”
― Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha

“Many others do not make this transition so seamlessly: they become enamored of the observing self that beginning meditation empowers and use that capacity for self-observation as a way to avoid personal responsibility. They observe their own pain, but not their contribution to its making.”
― Mark Epstein, Thoughts without a Thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective

“Our enjoyment is tainted by anxiety about keeping what we have and our compulsion to reach out and get more.”
― Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha