Evolving Dharma Quotes

“All relaxation does is allow the truth to be felt. The mind is cleared, like a dirty window wiped clean, and the magnitude of what we might ordinarily take for granted inspires tears.”
― Jay Michaelson, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Enlightenment

“There’s no path to liberation that doesn’t pass through the shadow.”
― Jay Michaelson, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Enlightenment

“What a miracle, that all we have to do to be beautifully loving creatures is just relax and allow.”
― Jay Michaelson, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Enlightenment

“It is possible to refine awareness itself so much that the emptiness of things, and the role mental construction plays, becomes a directly apprehended reality.”
― Jay Michaelson, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Enlightenment

“Sometimes, sitting there on the cushion failing to watch your breath, it can feel like you’re the only weirdo weird enough to be wasting your time in this way. But you’re not! There are generations of weirdos, monasteries full of them, and we have the benefit of their accumulated wisdom.”
― Jay Michaelson, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Enlightenment

“Part of why I love these angry, straight, white punks is that they are stripping the dharma of its bullshit, and applying it to contexts and styles that, even if they aren’t mine, are at least different from the norm.”
― Jay Michaelson, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Enlightenment

“At the last stages of the journey, there’s no journey at all.”
― Jay Michaelson, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Enlightenment

“The Buddha’s dharma didn’t teach peace and relaxation; it taught awakening—often rude awakening.”
― Jay Michaelson, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Enlightenment

“We are animals descended from five billion years of wanting, striving, and seeking. And life just doesn’t cooperate. So we suffer. And so the solution to that problem is to upgrade our minds, in a distinctly ‘unnatural’ way, so that the mind clings less and lets go more.”
― Jay Michaelson, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Enlightenment

“Brainhacking works. By following a few simple instructions, you can, over time, change the nature of your brain to make it more resilient, more resistant to aging, and more capable of happiness, compassion, and clarity. The data is in, and it matters. It matters, in fact, in two distinct ways. First, as this hard data filters through the U.S. healthcare industry, the educational system, the military, and the corporate world, to name just a few examples, it will become clear that mindfulness is among the most cost-effective methods ever for reducing hospital stays, advancing educational opportunity, and improving the functioning of organizations. This will be a game-changer. Second, the science changes how the dharma is even to be understood. This hard data is the opposite of soft spirituality. Meditation and mindfulness are tools, not a set of spiritual exercises whose merit depends on faith or some unknown forces. This is why I’ve used the word “technology” in describing the work of meditation, why Kenneth Folk calls it a form of “contemplative fitness,” and why I like the term “brainhacking.” We’re not referring here to actual, physical technologies like electrodes or vibrating implants or special sounds that put you into an altered state (although all of these exist). Rather, when I say “technology,” I’m thinking of how meditation and mindfulness are tools—processes that lead to predictable results.”
― Jay Michaelson, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Enlightenment

“The Hindu sage Ramakrishna once said that the mind is like fabric; it takes the color of the dye it’s soaked in. Soak the mind in a quiet, relaxing environment and it will become quiet and relaxed. Soak it in floods of Facebook and, well.…”
― Jay Michaelson, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Enlightenment

“For the Buddha of the Pali Canon, the goal is liberation: the cessation of suffering, the end of the endless hamster-wheel of dependent origination, of mental formations leading to desire leading to clinging leading to suffering and so on. Nibbana, or nirvana, was not originally conceived as some magical heavenly world, or even a permanent altered state of consciousness. It is usually described, in the early texts, negatively: as a candle being snuffed out.”
― Jay Michaelson, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Enlightenment

“Dukkha is not the self-inflicted stress of a technology executive; it’s the real stuff, the kind of suffering that merits the Pali word’s original meaning: brokenness, stuckness.”
― Jay Michaelson, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Enlightenment

“as Krishnamurti said, “It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
― Jay Michaelson, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Enlightenment

“Can I really remember, over and over again, that, contrary to all indications, fulfilling my desires will not be as satisfying as lessening them? Simple, but not easy.”
― Jay Michaelson, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Enlightenment