Ralph De La Rosa

“When we talk about our ego as something bad, it’s just self-hatred wearing a spiritual disguise.”
― Ralph De La Rosa, Don't Tell Me to Relax: Emotional Resilience in the Age of Rage, Feels, and Freak-Outs

“Be merciful. If it is a mess, let it be a mess. If it feels like you can't do this today, stay put and explore that feeling. Let your mindfulness co-opt everything in your experience. Unless you are in significant emotional or physical pain, stay put with no-matter-whatness. Keep realiging with the intentions of your practice: kindness, diligence, presence, attention, relaxation. Be a work in progress while holding this blueprint. The feeling of its being difficult is actually the sensation of your life evolving. Embrace it.”
― Ralph De La Rosa, The Monkey Is the Messenger: Meditation and What Your Busy Mind Is Trying to Tell You

“Our anger is moral. Our rage is sacred. Our anxiety contains wisdom. Our hearts are telling
us the truth. If the truth makes others uncomfortable—good. Show me an alarm clock that
makes a sweet sound and I’ll show you an alarm clock I can sleep through.”
― Ralph De La Rosa, Don't Tell Me to Relax: Emotional Resilience in the Age of Rage, Feels, and Freak-Outs

“It might seem that we have to generate the sense of openness, freshness, joy, revelry, or stillness we touch in such moments. From the Buddhist perspective, however, such a state of being is already there within us and has been so since the beginning.
It's tantalizing to think that perhaps expansiveness lies waiting to be uncovered within us while we go searching for it everywhere else. It’s not something we go toward so much as it is what we are left with when all our running around ceases. Our deeper nature is simply what’s left when we put down the endless task of trying to be somebody”
― Ralph De La Rosa, The Monkey Is the Messenger: Meditation and What Your Busy Mind Is Trying to Tell You