Steve Hagen quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Steve Hagen

Steve Hagen Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Steve Hagen on Wise Famous Quotes.

Mindfulness of the body is awareness of ... the taste and smell of this moment.

The only way we can be free in each moment is to become what each moment is.

We might think that by tossing a ball we initiate an action, but this is merely an arbitrary point in a beginningless line of action.

If you point out the moon to a cat, she probably won't look at the sky; she'll come up and sniff your finger.

No words - Buddha's, mine, or anyone else's - can see for you.

This moment is complete unto itself. There's nothing lacking in this moment

We have all sorts of stories about heaven and hell, about oblivion and nothingness, about 'coming back,' and so on. But they are all stories.

Whatever the world dishes up, we take it on
not on our own terms, but on the world's.

We imagine that things come into existence, endure for a while, and then pass out of existence

[E]ven in getting the wonderful things we long for, we tend to live in want of something more[.]

Truth is not ... something to believe or disbelieve. The things we believe are always less than Truth[.]

The impossibility of arriving at Truth by giving up your own authority and following the lights of others. Such a path will only lead to an opinion.

Usually we hold a frozen view of ourselves as well as of the world 'out there.' ... We identify with groups, behaviours, habits, and beliefs.

A buddha recognizes that anything put into speech is never completely reliable.

Why would anyone want to awaken to the Reality that they're not even here in the first place?

How can a hard and fast view of a world that is never hard and fast possibly be accurate?

Reality is not going to change with your perception of it.

You want to not have any problems.

This will never come again

We commonly see things 'out there' and go after them. Our mind is thus characterised by division and separation.

[W]e're caught by our concepts ... [C]oncepts are not Reality.

Nothing holds us back but our thoughts.

We pass by the joys of life without knowing we've missed anything.

[W]e ignore the Whole, we're taken in by the parts. We're seduced by objects of our consciousness

By our very attempt to grasp an explanation, we leave things out.

[I]mpermanence [is] the very thing that makes [life] vibrant, wonderful, and alive.

we face the woeful prospect that we're intelligent creatures living in a meaningless world.

[S]elfless action, action done while free of a sense of self. Action in which you don't see yourself as separate from other things.

This desire to hold on, to somehow stop change in its tracks, is the greatest source of woe and horror and trouble in our lives.

[T]he most basic division is 'me' and 'everything else,' self and other.

Good' crystallised ... breeds arrogance and hostility

[W]hat purpose does it serve to deny actual experience in order to run with an idea instead?

Neatly packaging everything gives us the illusion we ... know something.

When we talk about others, we should be very careful to observe our motive - especially if we're talking about a person who isn't present.

We're never called on to do what hurts. We just do what hurts out of ignorance and habit. Once we see what we're doing, we can stop.

[W]hen we come up with any concept at all, we simultaneously create one or more opposite concepts.

We can only be here. We can't leave. We are always here.

Give your mind a lot of space and it quiets down; try to control, quiet, or restrict it, and it goes wild.

The moment we try to capture and encapsulate Truth, we have paradox, confusion, contention [and] doubt[.]

[L]iberation [doesn't occur] in wearing robes or performing ritual acts.

After ... all the philosophy and science that we've laboured on for centuries, it's becoming very hard to find a story we can buy.

If your idea of good opposes something else, you can be sure that [it] is not absolute or certain.

To forget the self is to remember that we don't exist alone, but in relation to other people, to other creatures, to the planet, and to the universe.

There can be no moral authority to tell you what to do, for no such authority can lie outside your own will.

There's no rule in the end, but only the situation and the inclination of your mind

Good times come and go. And bad times do the same.

The biggest mistake we make in confusing a concept with Reality is in ... the separation of self and other.

[H]ow can something cease to exist that has no solid existence in the first place?

It's called enlightenment. It's nothing more or less than seeing things as they are rather than as we wish or believe them to be.

Every atom, every minuscule part of the universe is nothing other than movement and change.

[A] book is not merely a book, it is the sun as well.

Your breath is a unique object to meditation because it resides right at the boundary between inside and outside, between you and the outside world.

To deny a concept is not to embrace its opposite.

Good and bad aren't absolutes. They are beliefs, judgements, ideas based on limited knowledge as well as on the inclinations of our minds.

[W]ith the sense of self gone, ... actions naturally become uncalculated and free.

Ignorance is not the inability to see, but the act of ignoring what is really going on in favour of what we imagine.

Belief may serve as a useful stopgap measure in the absence of actual experience, but once you see ... [it] becomes unnecessary.

[T]here is really nothing 'out there' to get because, already, within this moment, everything is whole and complete.

[B]ecause of change, what we love continues to appear, and what we hate never lasts forever.

True freedom doesn't lie in the maximization of choice, but, ironically, is most easily found in a life where there is little choice.

Belief is at best an educated, informed conjecture about Reality.