Ayya Khema > Quotes

“If the whole universe can be found in our own body and mind, this is where we need to make our inquires. We all have the answers within ourselves, we just have not got in touch with them yet. The potential of finding the truth within requires faith in ourselves.”
― Ayya Khema

“If we divide into two camps--even into violent and the nonviolent--and stand in one camp while attacking the other, the world will never have peace. We will always blame and condemn those we feel are responsible for wars and social injustice, without recognizing the degree of violence within ourselves. We must work on ourselves and also with those we condemn if we want to have a real impact.
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― Ayya Khema

“When the eye sees, it simply registers color and shape. All the rest takes place in the mind.”
― Ayya Khema, Who Is My Self?: A Guide to Buddhist Meditation

“Joy with others is a sure antidote for depression. Anybody who suffers from depression is suffering from the lack of joy with others, the lack of sympathetic joy. One cannot always have joyful occasions, joyful thoughts in one’s own life, but if one has joy with other people, one can surely find something to be happy about.”
― Ayya Khema, Being nobody, going nowhere : meditations on the Buddhist path

“Wisdom comes only from the understood experience and from nothing else.”
― Ayya Khema, Who Is My Self?: A Guide to Buddhist Meditation

“Not to learn from our experiences is a tremendous waste of time. Life is an adult-education school.”
― Ayya Khema, Who Is My Self?: A Guide to Buddhist Meditation

“There is no one creator, but there is the realm of creation.”
― Ayya Khema, Who Is My Self?: A Guide to Buddhist Meditation

“Life keeps on happening and doesn’t need us to think about it. It’s constantly arising and ceasing every single moment.”
― Ayya Khema, Being nobody, going nowhere : meditations on the Buddhist path

“LOVING-KINDNESS MEDITATION PLEASE PUT THE ATTENTION on the breath for just a moment to become centered. Take a look into your heart and see whether there is any worry, fear, grief, dislike, resentment, rejection, uneasiness, anxiety. If you find any of those, let them float away like the black clouds that they are… Then let warmth and friendship arise in your heart for yourself, realizing that you have to be your own best friend. Surround yourself with loving thoughts for yourself and a feeling of contentment within you… Now surround the person nearest to you in the room with loving thoughts and fill that person with peace and wish for that person’s happiness… Now surround everyone here with loving thoughts… Let the feeling of peacefulness extend to everyone here, and think of yourself as everyone’s good friend… Think of your parents, whether they are still alive or not. Surround them with love. Fill them with peace and gratitude for what they have done for you, be their good friend… Think of those people who are nearest and dearest to you. Embrace them with love, fill them with peace as a gift from you, without expecting them to return it to you… Think of your friends. Open up your heart to them, to show them your friendship, your concern, your love, giving it to them without expecting anything in return… Think of your neighbors who live near you, the people you meet at work, on the street, in the shops, make them all your friends; let them enter into your heart without any reservation. Show them love… Think of anyone for whom you have dislike or with whom you may have had an argument, who has made difficulties for you, whom you do not consider your friend. Think of that person with gratitude, as your teacher, teaching you about your own reactions. Let your heart go out to that person because he or she too has difficulties. Forgive and forget. Make him or her your friend…”
― Ayya Khema, Being nobody, going nowhere : meditations on the Buddhist path

“Contentment with our life as it is brings a feeling of great lightness, for we lose the burden of continually craving for situations and people to be different. Things are as they are. Refusing to accept this creates dukkha and brings pain. It is like pushing against a sealed door. We push and we push until our hands hurt, but we cannot open it. If we are wise, we accept that this is simply how it is. The door is sealed, and it is perfectly all right that it is so.”
― Ayya Khema, Who Is My Self?: A Guide to Buddhist Meditation

“The mind that doesn’t need any outer conditions for happiness is the mind that can say, “This is the release from all suffering. This is true happiness.” Such a mind sees with clarity the absolute reality of what’s happening in this universe and doesn’t have to hang on to anything, attach to anything, doesn’t have to become anything, doesn’t have to be anything. It just does what is necessary at each particular moment and then lets go.”
― Ayya Khema, Being nobody, going nowhere : meditations on the Buddhist path

“At the beginning of each meditation, we ask ourselves: “Am I having thoughts of ill-will? Doubt? Restlessness and worry? Am I feeling lazy and sleepy? Is my mind filled with desires?” If so, we try to drop these obstacles, using the antidotes of loving-kindness and of calming the mind, remembering that there is nothing to gain and everything to get rid of.”
― Ayya Khema, Who Is My Self?: A Guide to Buddhist Meditation

“In meditation, we have to give ourselves totally, with no holding back. Whatever meditation subject we have chosen, we must become immersed in it;”
― Ayya Khema, Who Is My Self?: A Guide to Buddhist Meditation

“Restlessness and worry are always connected to desire, and when we recognize this and let go of the desire, the heart is purified and the mind is calmed.”
― Ayya Khema, Who Is My Self?: A Guide to Buddhist Meditation

“The enjoyment of the senses becomes more refined when there’s more purification in a person. The smallest thing can be enjoyed, but the danger lies in wanting it. This wanting — the craving — brings the unsatisfactoriness because the wanting can never be fully satisfied.”
― Ayya Khema, Being nobody, going nowhere : meditations on the Buddhist path

“We will discover that everything we are carrying around in our minds is nothing but extraneous matter. It has been put there by our desires, rejections, reactions, thoughts, plans, hopes, ideas, and viewpoints.”
― Ayya Khema, Who Is My Self?: A Guide to Buddhist Meditation

“If we want real happiness, the only way it can arise is by letting go of the one who is unhappy. It is not a question of trying to hold on to the one who is happy. Rather, when the unhappy one is relinquished, nothing else remains except the happiness of tranquility and pure awareness.”
― Ayya Khema, Who Is My Self?: A Guide to Buddhist Meditation

“The missing link can only come through the practice of loving-kindness toward ourselves, in spite of everything we know about ourselves. Only then, in fact, will we be able to love others, without criticism or judgment.”
― Ayya Khema, Who Is My Self?: A Guide to Buddhist Meditation

“He first advocates practicing moral conduct as a foundation for spiritual development.”
― Ayya Khema, Who Is My Self?: A Guide to Buddhist Meditation

“The goal of the Buddha’s teaching is Nibbāna (Sanskrit: Nirvāṇa). Literally translated, that means “not burning,” or in other words, the loss of all passions.”
― Ayya Khema, Who Is My Self?: A Guide to Buddhist Meditation

“Each insight should be nurtured and reinforced by bringing it up again and again and anchoring it in the mind. Then we will have access to it and be able to use it at all times.”
― Ayya Khema, Who Is My Self?: A Guide to Buddhist Meditation

“The path the Buddha taught and is explaining to Po˛˛hap›da in this sutta has to be followed step by step. First comes morality, then guarding the sense-doors, mindfulness and clear comprehension, contentment, letting go of the hindrances, and — only after these — the first meditative absorption.”
― Ayya Khema, Who Is My Self?: A Guide to Buddhist Meditation

“on the higher levels of the spiritual path, celibacy is considered a most important aspect of the training.”
― Ayya Khema, Who Is My Self?: A Guide to Buddhist Meditation

“Everything that comes to us through our senses comes from the world, but the inner experience that comes to us through meditation is not dependent on worldly matters. Once we are able to experience the joy of full concentration, we will find that this in itself is an automatic antidote to desire.”
― Ayya Khema, Who Is My Self?: A Guide to Buddhist Meditation

“The teaching of the Buddha is called the Dhamma. He did not teach Buddhism, any more than Jesus taught Christianity.”
― Ayya Khema, Who Is My Self?: A Guide to Buddhist Meditation

“Everybody has some unpleasant experiences in their lives.
People say things we don’t want to hear. People do things we don’t want them to do.
People don’t appreciate us, love us, praise us.
People go away when we want them to stay. People stay when we would like them to go away.
It happens to everyone.”
― Ayya Khema, Being Nobody, Going Nowhere: Meditations on the Buddhist Path

“Aquí y ahora nos estamos muriendo. Todos nuestros pensamientos, todas nuestras emociones, nuestra respiración, todo nuestro cuerpo, fluye constantemente. Este movimiento constante está en nosotros, al igual que lo está en todo el universo, una muerte y un renacer a cada instante. Entendiendo esta verdad, también podemos entender el renacimiento a mayor escala que sucede cada mañana cuando nos despertamos. No es necesario especular sobre qué sucede después de morir. Ya está sucediendo a cada instante. A medida que el cuerpo envejece, este renacer se vuelve cada vez más débil y frágil, hasta que finalmente no sucede más”
― Ayya Khema, ¿Quién es mi yo?: Las enseñanzas originales del Buddha sobre la conciencia

“The temptations in our heart are there practically all the time, and because we don’t recognize them, we are often in a quandary. We are being pulled this way and that. For instance, right now: we know it’s better to hear Dhamma, but wouldn’t it also be nice to go to sleep? If we were left alone, without a lot of people sitting here, it is quite likely we’d wander off to bed.”
― Ayya Khema, Being nobody, going nowhere : meditations on the Buddhist path

“If we sit down with the idea, “Oh dear, another meditation session, I suppose I must stick it out,” we will never be able to do it. There must be a feeling of strength and uplift in the mind. Meditation will enhance both, but we have to bring them with us in the first place.”
― Ayya Khema, Who Is My Self?: A Guide to Buddhist Meditation

“What we are looking for lies within us, and if we gave our time and energy to an interior search, we would come across it much faster, since that is the only place where it is to be found.”
― Ayya Khema, Who Is My Self?: A Guide to Buddhist Meditation