J. Jennifer Matthews > Quotes

“Striving for perfection, the compulsion to manufacture a perfect situation, is a habit with us. We are addicted to improving ourselves and our lives’ situations. But we cannot experience our true openness by improving ourselves. It is a bit like taking better and better care of our bodies; eating nothing but brown rice and vegetables and running marathons and so on, and doing all this in the hope that one day we will be able to fly.”
― J. Jennifer Matthews, Radically Condensed Instructions for Being Just as You Are

“We can experience profound joy if we give ourselves permission to. Instead we look outside ourselves for a perfect situation. And it is the act of looking that takes us away from our happiness.”
― J. Jennifer Matthews, Radically Condensed Instructions for Being Just as You Are

“If you say the Kingdom of God is in the sky, then the birds got in ahead of you.’ – Jesus of Nazareth, The Gospel of Thomas.”
― J. Jennifer Matthews, Radically Condensed Instructions for Being Just as You Are

“Just as the sun does not revolve around the earth, but the other way ‘round, so our perception is not governed by the objects we perceive. Rather, objects are perceived according to our perception.”
― J. Jennifer Matthews, Radically Condensed Instructions for Being Just as You Are

“I am not saying that the world is a dream, and certainly not a private one. I am saying that whatever you think the world’s status is, the fact is, that the ‘self’ who would be dreaming, (or really seeing things as they are), is an artificial program we are running, which takes up an inordinate amount of energy. In fact it’s a real pain in the neck.”
― J. Jennifer Matthews, Radically Condensed Instructions for Being Just as You Are

“If we want to appreciate the mystery of life, it is essential to evade the compulsion of our desires by understanding that there does not need to be anything else in our current situations. There is no greater feeling, state, or condition that we have to achieve. There is no lesser or more limited feeling, state, or condition that we have to be liberated from. This is it. And this poignancy is always here. We can give ourselves permission to experience it; to be right here with it. To be available to it. To be available to the mystery of life is to be free.”
― J. Jennifer Matthews, Radically Condensed Instructions for Being Just as You Are

“The fact is, we don’t experience the mystery of life by ‘working through’ our perturbation. We just experience it. We simply decide to experience life, without judgment or expectation. A moment’s lapse is a moment’s lapse. The reason our occasional, alienating thoughts and feelings bother us is because we think we should be bothered by them.”
― J. Jennifer Matthews, Radically Condensed Instructions for Being Just as You Are

“Wakefulness or enlightenment can be reasonably defined as appreciating the mystery of life in the present moment, while knowing it is the only 'thing' there is. Wakefulness’ opposite – the dissatisfaction brought about by reactive emotions and alienating desire – can be reasonably defined as the futile attempt to ‘get something out of life.”
― J. Jennifer Matthews, Radically Condensed Instructions for Being Just as You Are

“We simply decide to experience life, without judgment or expectation.”
― J. Jennifer Matthews, Radically Condensed Instructions for Being Just as You Are

“Feeling numb to experience is caused by the false perception that you are caught in the wrong experience, as if in a predicament. This perception is caused in turn by the false belief that you are a self who pursues experience. You do not need to pursue experience. You are experience.”
― J. Jennifer Matthews, Radically Condensed Instructions for Being Just as You Are

“The life of this moment has no outside.”
― J. Jennifer Matthews, Radically Condensed Instructions for Being Just as You Are

“The whole idea of being a ‘self’ is already a kind-of philosophical self-protection. It is the false idea of an abiding redoubt or enclosure in experience, which will remain fundamentally untouched and unaffected.”
― J. Jennifer Matthews, Radically Condensed Instructions for Being Just as You Are

“When we realize our true self is nothing other than present-moment experience, we are free to love whatever is happening, regardless of whether we like it!”
― J. Jennifer Matthews, Radically Condensed Instructions for Being Just as You Are

“We all experience plenty of things that are indescribable, but that doesn't put them on a par with experience itself any more than my mother calling me “impossible” makes me a square circle.”
― J. Jennifer Matthews, Radically Condensed Instructions for Being Just as You Are

“Because we identify with our desires, we situate our freedom in our ability to pursue and fulfill desires.”
― J. Jennifer Matthews, Radically Condensed Instructions for Being Just as You Are