The Heart of the Revolution Quotes

“Forgiveness is not just a selfish pursuit of personal satisfaction or righteousness. It actually alleviates the amount of suffering in the world. As each one of us frees ourselves from clinging to resentments that cause suffering, we relieve our friends, family, and community of the burden of our unhappiness. This is not a philosophical proposal; it is a verifiable and practical truth. Through our suffering and lack of forgiveness, we tend to do all kinds of unskillful things that hurt others. We close ourselves off from love, for example, out of fear of further pains or betrayals. This alone—a lack of openness to the love shown to us—is a way that we cause harm to our loved ones. The closed heart lets no one in or out.”
― Noah Levine, The Heart of the Revolution: The Buddha's Radical Teachings on Forgiveness, Compassion, and Kindness

“We become attached to each pleasant thought, feeling, taste, smell, and sound. But because everything is impermanent, we’re craving and clinging to fleeting experiences. Pleasure never lasts long enough; we can never sustain enough pleasure to satisfy the cravings. Suffering is the inevitable outcome of clinging to experiences that are unsustainable. Each moment of attachment or clinging creates some level of suffering in our lives as we grieve the loss of pleasure. What we often forget is that we have the power and ability simply to let go, and each moment of letting go is an act of mercy. The subversive act of nonclinging is an internal coup d’état.”
― Noah Levine, The Heart of the Revolution: The Buddha's Radical Teachings on Forgiveness, Compassion, and Kindness

“We all know that rainbows are temporary optical illusions based on the factors of sunlight, moisture, and heat. The environment creates each rainbow like the mind creates a self. Both creations are relatively real, in that we can genuinely experience them temporarily; but just as the factors that created the illusion (whether rainbow or self) arose, so will they also pass. There is no permanent self; there is no permanent rainbow. It is not true to say that there is no self at all or that everything is empty or illusory, but it is true that everything is constantly changing and that there is no solid, permanent, unchanging self within the process that is life. Everything and everyone is an unfolding process.”
― Noah Levine, The Heart of the Revolution: The Buddha's Radical Teachings on Forgiveness, Compassion, and Kindness

“if our definition of happiness is “experiencing that which is pleasurable,” we are going to be disappointed a lot of the time.”
― Noah Levine, The Heart of the Revolution: The Buddha's Radical Teachings on Forgiveness, Compassion, and Kindness

“Loving-kindness is the experience of having a friendly and loving relationship toward ourselves as well as all others. The experience of sending loving-kindness toward ourselves is perhaps as simple as bringing a friendly attitude to our minds and bodies. Typically, we tend to judge ourselves and be quite critical and harsh in our self-assessments, identifying with the negative thoughts and feelings that arise in our minds. Being loving and kind isn’t our normal habit, so training the heart/mind to be kind is a great task. Mindfulness brings the mind’s negative habits into awareness.”
― Noah Levine, The Heart of the Revolution: The Buddha's Radical Teachings on Forgiveness, Compassion, and Kindness

“The next step in the process of liberation is to break this chain reaction of suffering whenever life is unpleasant and feeling content only when life is pleasurable.”
― Noah Levine, The Heart of the Revolution: The Buddha's Radical Teachings on Forgiveness, Compassion, and Kindness

“It is not true to say that there is no self at all or that everything is empty or illusory, but it is true that everything is constantly changing and that there is no solid, permanent, unchanging self within the process that is life.”
― Noah Levine, The Heart of the Revolution: The Buddha's Radical Teachings on Forgiveness, Compassion, and Kindness