Joseph Goldstein > Quotes

“In India, I was living in a little hut, about six feet by seven feet. It had a canvas flap instead of a door. I was sitting on my bed meditating, and a cat wandered in and plopped down on my lap. I took the cat and tossed it out the door. Ten seconds later it was back on my lap. We got into a sort of dance, this cat and I...I tossed it out because I was trying to meditate, to get enlightened. But the cat kept returning. I was getting more and more irritated, more and more annoyed with the persistence of the cat. Finally, after about a half-hour of this coming in and tossing out, I had to surrender. There was nothing else to do. There was no way to block off the door. I sat there, the cat came back in, and it got on my lap. But I did not do anything. I just let go. Thirty seconds later the cat got up and walked out. So, you see, our teachers come in many forms.”
― Joseph Goldstein

“The commitment to morality, or non-harming, is a source of tremendous strength, because it helps free the mind from the remorse of having done unwholesome actions. Freedom from remorse leads to happiness. Happiness leads to concentration. Concentration brings wisdom. And wisdom is the source of peace and freedom in our lives.”
― Joseph Goldstein, A Heart Full of Peace

“The wonderful paradox about the truth of suffering is that the more we open to it and understand it, the lighter and freer our mind becomes. Our mind becomes more spacious, more open, and happier as we move past our avoidance and denial to see what is true. We become less driven by compulsive desires and addictions, because we see clearly the nature of things as they are.”
― Joseph Goldstein, Insight Meditation: The Practice of Freedom

“Every time we become aware of a thought, as opposed to being lost in a thought, we experience that opening of the mind.”
― Joseph Goldstein, Insight Meditation: The Practice of Freedom

“Whatever has the nature to arise has the nature to cease.”
― Joseph Goldstein, Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening

“Imagine holding on to a hot burning coal. You would not fear letting go of it. In fact, once you noticed that you were holding on, you would probably drop it quickly. But we often do not recognize how we hold on to suffering. It seems to hold on to us. This is our practice: becoming aware of how suffering arises in our mind and of how we become identified with it, and learning to let it go. We learn through simple and direct observation, seeing the process over and over again until we understand.”
― Joseph Goldstein, Insight Meditation: The Practice of Freedom

“The greatest communication is usually how we are rather than what we say.”
― Joseph Goldstein, Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening

“Guilt is a manifestation of condemnation or aversion towards oneself, which does not understand the changing transformative quality of mind.

'Seeking the Heart of Wisdom”
― Joseph Goldstein

“One of the great misconceptions we often carry throughout our lives is that our perceptions of ourselves and the world are basically accurate and true, that they reflect some stable, ultimate reality. This misconception leads to tremendous suffering, both globally and in our personal life situations.”
― Joseph Goldstein, Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening

“In Buddhist psychology “conceit” has a special meaning: that activity of the mind that compares itself with others. When we think about ourselves as better than, equal to, or worse than someone else, we are giving expression to conceit. This comparing mind is called conceit because all forms of it—whether it is “I’m better than” or “I’m worse than,” or “I’m just the same as”—come from the hallucination that there is a self; they all refer back to a feeling of self, of “I am.”
― Joseph Goldstein, Insight Meditation: The Practice of Freedom

“Just as the light of a single candle can dispel the darkness of a thousand years, the moment we light a single candle of wisdom, no matter how long or deep our confusion, ignorance is dispelled.”
― Joseph Goldstein

“On the deepest level, problems such as war and starvation are not solved by economics and politics alone. Their source is prejudice and fear in the human heart — and their solution also lies in the human heart.”
― Joseph Goldstein, The Path of Insight Meditation

“True humility is the absence of anyone to be proud.” Humility is not a stance; it is simply the absence of self. In the same way, relationship is the absence of separation, and it can be felt with each breath, each sensation, each thought, each cloud in the sky, each person that we meet. “And being nothing, you are everything. That is all.”
― Joseph Goldstein, Insight Meditation: The Practice of Freedom

“Our progress in meditation does not depend on the measure of pleasure or pain in our experience. Rather, the quality of our practice has to do with how open we are to whatever is there.”
― Joseph Goldstein, Insight Meditation: The Practice of Freedom

“We can then see for ourselves the obvious truth that when we cling or hold on to that which changes, we suffer.”
― Joseph Goldstein, Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening

“What you are looking for is what is looking.”
― Joseph Goldstein, Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening

“Without the steadiness of concentration, it is easy to get caught up in the feelings, perceptions, and thoughts as they arise. We take them to be self and get carried away by trains of association and reactivity.”
― Joseph Goldstein, Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening

“Generosity, love, compassion, or devotion do not depend on a high IQ.”
― Joseph Goldstein, Insight Meditation: The Practice of Freedom

“one of the most radical, far-reaching, and challenging statements of the Buddha is his statement that as long as there is attachment to the pleasant and aversion to the unpleasant, liberation is impossible.”
― Joseph Goldstein, Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening

“An emotion is like a cloud passing through the sky. Sometimes it is fear or anger, sometimes it is happiness or love, sometimes it is compassion. But none of them ultimately constitute a self. They are just what they are, each manifesting its own quality. With this understanding, we can cultivate the emotions that seem helpful and simply let the others be, without aversion, without suppression, without identification.”
― Joseph Goldstein, Insight Meditation: The Practice of Freedom

“Most people believe that we are the thoughts that come through our mind. I hope not, because if we are, we are in big trouble! Those thoughts coming through have clearly been conditioned by something: by different events in our childhood, our environment, our past lives, or even some occurrence that has happened two minutes before.”
― Joseph Goldstein, Insight Meditation: The Practice of Freedom

“Love, compassion, and peace do not belong to any religion or tradition. They are qualities in each one of us, qualities of our hearts and minds..”
― Joseph Goldstein, A Heart Full of Peace

“Hatred never ceases by hatred; it only ceases by love.”
― Joseph Goldstein, Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening

“If we try to practice meditation without the foundation of goodwill to ourselves and others, it is like trying to row across a river without first untying the boat; our efforts, no matter how strenuous, will not bear fruit. We need to practice and refine our ability to live honestly and with integrity.”
― Joseph Goldstein, Insight Meditation: The Practice of Freedom

“But after years of practice I’ve come to feel grateful when I observe these unskillful patterns arise, because now I would rather see them than not see them. It becomes another chance to unhook from these patterns, to see their essential transparency, and to let go of the burden they bring.”
― Joseph Goldstein, One Dharma: The Emerging Western Buddhism

“Aspirations inspire us, while expectations simply lead us into cycles of hope and fear: hope that what we want will happen; fear that it won’t.”
― Joseph Goldstein, Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening

“Unless a practice cools the fires of greed, aversion, and ignorance it is worthless.”
― Joseph Goldstein, Insight Meditation: The Practice of Freedom

“Why be unhappy about something if it can be remedied? And what is the use of being unhappy about something if it cannot be remedied?”
― Joseph Goldstein, Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening

“Finally, my mind just settled into the realization that accidents happen, and a mantra suddenly appeared in my mind, one that has served me well since: anything can happen anytime.”
― Joseph Goldstein, Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening

“All things arise when the appropriate conditions are present, and all things pass away as conditions change. Behind the process, there is no “self” who is running the show.”
― Joseph Goldstein, Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening