It's Easier Than You Think Quotes

“... every single act we do has the potential of causing pain, and every single thing we do has consequences that echo way beyond what we can imagine. It doesn't mean we shouldn't act. It means we should act carefully. Everything matters [p. 41].”
― Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

“Pain is inevitable; lives come with pain. Suffering is not inevitable. If suffering is what happens when we struggle with our experience because of our inability to accept it, then suffering is an optional extra [p. 19].”
― Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

“... freedom of choice is possible. Life is going to unfold however it does: pleasant or unpleasant, disappointing or thrilling, expected or unexpected, all of the above! What a relief it would be to know that whatever wave comes along, we can ride it out with grace [p. 35].”
― Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

“I want to feel deeply, and whenever I am brokenhearted I emerge more compassionate. I think I allow myself to be brokenhearted more easily, knowing I won't be irrevocably shattered [p. 59]”
― Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

“Becoming aware of fragility, of temporality, of the fact that we will surely all be lost to one another, sooner or later, mandates a clear imperative to be totally kind and loving to each other always [p.119].”
― Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

“Anger is often a big problem for people who grew up in families where the overt expression of anger was an everyday occurrence. They have too much opportunity to practice anger and not enough sense of the other possibilities. Rage becomes, for them, the habitual response of the mind to unpleasant situations. ... When people begin to see that anger, like any other mind energy, is just a transient phenomenon and therefore workable, they are very relieved [p. 83].”
― Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

“... life is difficult and painful, just by its very nature, not because we're doing it wrong [pp. 17-18].”
― Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

“... the delicacy, the impermanence, the emptiness of mind states. Just like the weather, they blow in and out. Good mood. Bad mood. Tranquil mood. Frazzled mood [p. 105].”
― Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

“Essentially, he taught that it doesn’t make sense to upset ourselves about what is beyond our control. We don’t get a choice about what hand we are dealt in this life. The only choice we have is our attitude about the cards we hold and the finesse with which we play our hand.”
― Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

“One of the ways we build intimate relationships with other people is by sharing our fears with them, telling them the things that still frighten us. ...
"When we begin to appreciate the ways in which people have been frightened in their lives, we can be compassionate toward them, rather than angry [p. 97].”
― Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

“Right Understanding means feeling terrible, remembering pain is finite, and taking some solace from that remembering. And, when things are pleasant, even splendidly pleasant, remembering impermanence doesn't diminish the experience--it enhances it [p. 33]”
― Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

“They were struggling and often in quite a lot of pain and concern, but still, they were all right. I thought to myself as I looked around, 'What we're all doing is we're all managing gracefully.' [p.5]”
― Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

“Sometimes I think the only thing worth saying is “I love you.”
― Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

“I think they paid attention to their lives and became wise. For those of us who don’t arrive at wisdom naturally, meditation is one way to get there through practice.”
― Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

“Mindfulness, the aware, balanced acceptance of present experience, is at the heart of what the Buddha taught.”
― Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

“Safely connected to my life, and reassured of my essential goodness, I feel at ease, at home, really in the most sublime of homes. [p. 58]”
― Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

“... if anger arises in the mind in response to an outside event, it's helpful to look for either the saddening or frightening aspect of that event and then take whatever measures we can to address the sadness or the fear. Knowing that negativity or aversion is a transient energy never means to ignore it. It means to see it clearly, always, and work with it wisely [p. 85].”
― Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

“Being trapped by fear is a form of delusion. Either I can do something or I can't. If I truly can't ... I don't do it. If I truly can, and it wold be a wholesome thing to do, I push myself [p. 39].”
― Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

“... Fear doesn't frighten me as much as it used to. I know it's from clinging, and I know it will pass [p. 29].”
― Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

“It is possible to cultivate a mind so spacious that it can be passionate and awake and responsive and involved and care about things, and noty struggle [p. 23]”
― Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

“Mindfulness, the aware, balanced acceptance of present experience, is at the heart of what the Buddha taught. This book is meant to be a basic Buddhist primer, but no one should be daunted. It's easier than you think [p. 4]”
― Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

“Here is an exercise in advanced Right Speech. Starting tomorrow when you wake up, don’t gossip. See what happens if you just give up making comments about anyone not present. Listen carefully to the voice in your mind as it is getting ready to make a comment, and think to yourself, “Why am I saying this?” Awareness of intention is the best clue for knowing whether the remark you are about to make is Right Speech. Is”
― Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

“Often, it is the thought that pain will never end that makes it seem unbearable.”
― Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

“The first is about spiritual living. I think it’s plain. Ordinary people do it, and they don’t even know they are doing it. In the middle of plain lives, with regular joys and griefs, they live with grace and kindness and are happy.”
― Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

“I have become more passionate, not less. When I am delighted, which is often, I am ecstatic. When I am sad, I cry easily. Nothing is a big deal. It’s whatever it is, and then it’s something else.”
― Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

“Don’t you know,” he said to the abbot, “that I am the sort of man who could run you through with this sword in a moment without blinking an eye?” To which the abbot is said to have replied, “And I, sir, am the type of man who could be run through with a sword in a minute without blinking an eye.”
― Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

“Because a grumpy mood that seems to come out of the blue is so inexplicable, I think we go around looking for something to feel annoyed about, some external circumstance to dislike in order to discharge that energy. Even”
― Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

“not doing anything to change experience but rather discovering that experience is bearable.”
― Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

“We talked about how feeling a little better made her feel much better,”
― Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

“Knowing the truth brings happiness.”
― Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness