Quotes Tagged "detachment"

If you truly want to be respected by people you love, you must prove to them that you can survive without them.

Take any emotion—love for a woman, or grief for a loved one, or what I’m going through, fear and pain from a deadly illness. If you hold back on the emotions—if you don’t allow yourself to go all the way through them—you can never get to being detached, you’re too busy being afraid. You’re afraid of the pain, you’re afraid of the grief. You’re afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails. “But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, ‘All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment’.

Subhuti, someone might fill innumerable worlds with the seven treasures and give all away in gifts of alms, but if any good man or any good woman awakens the thought of Enlightenment and takes even only four lines from this Discourse, reciting, using, receiving, retaining and spreading them abroad and explaining them for the benefit of others, it will be far more meritorious. Now in what manner may he explain them to others? By detachment from appearances-abiding in Real Truth. -So I tell you- Thus shall you think of all this fleeting world: A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream; A flash of lightening in a summer cloud, A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream. When Buddha finished this Discourse the venerable Subhuti, together with the bhikshus, bhikshunis, lay-brothers and sisters, and the whole realms of Gods, Men and Titans, were filled with joy by His teaching, and, taking it sincerely to heart they went their ways.

People often associate complexity with deeper meaning, when often after precious time has been lost, it is realized that simplicity is the key to everything.

Always remember that you were once alone, and the crowd you see in your life today are just as unecessary as when you were alone.

When something – or someone – that you are clinging on to starts controlling you, the joy of doing that something or being with that person evaporates. You feel miserable. To uncling, you must feel and hate that misery deep within you. Ask yourself if you really want so much suffering in your Life – for instance, if you smoke, are you smoking for yourself anymore or is your habit controlling you, driving you crazy; or if you are in an abusive marriage, are you in it because you are loving it or are you being held hostage in it by the person’s power or by social norms? Only brutally honest conversations with yourself on what – or who – is possessing you leads you to uncling. You finally uncling only when you realize that you have to make that choice to let go, to move on, to end the suffering!

Extreme love suffocates. A man who loves everyone suffers immensely as he develops attachment towards everyone and hence his pains are also multiplied. A happy man is one who balances attachment and detachment well so that his happiness is maximised.

A life of detachment from greed and desires allows a person to appreciate the truly marvelous part of being alive. I cannot acquire the most sublime pleasures of life with money, force, or industry. I must learn to listen to the song of the wind, rejoice in the drumming patter of fine rain falling in a leafy forest, and delight in witnessing the coming of autumn when the leaves turn into orange and red flames. I seek sincerity of being. I hope to find comfort in a modest meal and cultivate joy by witnessing the birthing and playfulness of the young. I am no longer interested in the practical matters that businesspeople attend, exhibit no attentive awareness of political, cultural, or social affairs, and do not wish to inject myself into the warring conflicts of world.

Hope not, despair not.. The human race is the human race. Nothing can be done about it.

Success is often experienced through the absence of a past sensation rather than the presence of a new one.

Like everything else, we know the futility of money only when we have more than enough of it.

As long as we lean on anything outside ourselves for support, we are going to be insecure. Most of us try to find support by leaning on all sorts of things - gold, books, learning, sensory stimulation - and if these things are taken away, we fall over. To the extent that we are dependent on these external supports, we grow weaker and more liable to upsets and misfortune.