Vicki Mackenzie > Quotes

“Normally we are so identified with our thoughts and emotions, that we are them. We are the happiness, we are the anger, we are the fear. We have to learn to step back and know our thoughts and emotions are just thoughts and emotions. They're just mental states.”
― Vicki Mackenzie, Cave in the Snow

“people cause so much of their own suffering just because they think that without having these strong emotions they're not real people.”
― Vicki Mackenzie, Cave in the Snow

“Our minds are like junk yards. What we put into them is mostly rubbish! The conversations, the newspapers, the entertainment, we just pile it all in. There's a jam session going on in there. And the problem is it makes us very tired,”
― Vicki Mackenzie, Cave In The Snow

“Our mind is so untamed, out of control, constantly creating memories, prejudices, mental commentaries. It's like a riot act for most people! Anarchy within. We have no way of choosing how to think and the emotions engulf us. Meditation is where you begin to calm the storm, to cease the never-ending chattering of the mind. Once that is achieved you can access the deeper levels of consciousness which exist beyond the surface noise. Along with that comes the gradual disidentification with our thoughts and emotions. You see their transparent nature and no longer totally believe in them. This creates inner harmony which you can then bring into your everyday life.”
― Vicki Mackenzie, Cave In The Snow

“He knows he only has the choice of going crazy or going inside and finding his own mind, which is what Buddhism is all about. Buddhism maintains that one's reality is part of one's own mindset, and that through discovering your own mind, even in the direst situations you can make your world a pure realm.”
― Vicki Mackenzie, Why Buddhism: Westerners in Search of Wisdom

“They Can Because They Think They Can'.”
― Vicki Mackenzie, Cave In The Snow

“No one ever teaches us how to change from an angry to a non-angry person. No one ever tells us that anger causes 'you' suffering and is not helpful. That it stops 'your' peace of mind and everybody else's. It's never talked about in a practical way, only a moralistic way.”
― Vicki Mackenzie, Why Buddhism: Westerners in Search of Wisdom

“...these absurd mental fluctuations that I call me.”
― Vicki Mackenzie, Why Buddhism: Westerners in Search of Wisdom

“Such was the malleability of the Buddha's message, which eschewed dogma and blind faith. "Treat my teachings like gold. Test them and shape them into an ornament to suit each particular wearer", he said.”
― Vicki Mackenzie, The Revolutionary Life of Freda Bedi: British Feminist, Indian Nationalist, Buddhist Nun

“What I learnt from that was that the exhaustion that pain brings arises because we resist it. The thing is to learn to go with the pain, to ride it.”
― Vicki Mackenzie, Cave In The Snow

“At the moment it's as though we're looking through a pair of binoculars and the perspective is blurred. When we experience anything we do so through the filter of ideas, preconceptions, judgements. For example, when we meet somebody we don't see them as they actually are. We see them in relationship to what we're thinking about them - how much we like or dislike them, how they remind us of somebody else, what sort of qualities they have. We're not experiencing them in themselves. Everything we perceive is like that - everything we see, eat, hear, touch. It's immediately interpreted back to ourselves in conformity with our thoughts and experiences.”
― Vicki Mackenzie, Cave In The Snow

“The purpose of life is to realize our spiritual nature. And to do that one has to go away and practise, to reap the fruits of the path, otherwise you have nothing to give anyone else.”
― Vicki Mackenzie, Cave In The Snow