Mack > Mack's Quotes

“The thing is that this life is so precious and mysterious, I don’t know what to say about it most of the time. Words are like birds, passing through the trackless sky. The dog barking, the sound of the purling stream, the wind among the weeping willow trees: how are these not right off the tongue of the Buddha?" --Lama Surya Das”
― Lama Surya Das, Awakening To The Sacred: Creating a Spiritual Life from Scratch

“Breath by breath, let go of fear, expectation, anger, regret, cravings, frustration, fatigue. Let go of the need for approval. Let go of old judgments and opinions. Die to all that, and fly free. Soar in the freedom of desirelessness.

Let go. Let Be. See through everything and be free, complete, luminous, at home -- at ease.”
― Lama Surya Das, Awakening the Buddha Within: Tibetan Wisdom for the Western World

“Forgiveness means letting go of the hope for a better past.”
― Lama Surya Das

“Other people can’t cause us to be impatient unless we let them do so. In other words, others don’t make us impatient. We make ourselves impatient, through our expectations and demands, fixated attachments and stuckness.”
― Lama Surya Das

“before speaking, notice what motivates your words.”
― Lama Surya Das, Awakening The Buddha Within: Tibetan Wisdom for the Western World

“Enlightenment is not about becoming divine. Instead it's about becoming more fully human. . . . It is the end of ignorance.”
― Lama Surya Das, Awakening the Buddha Within: Tibetan Wisdom for the Western World

“The secret, or innermost, level of wisdom is pure intuition, clarity, lucidity, innate wakefulness, presence, and recognition of reality. This transcendental wisdom is within all of us—it just needs to be discovered and developed, unfolded and actualized.”
― Lama Surya Das

“Taking the decision-making process away from people disempowers them. It also makes them much less likely to buy into the decision, however right it may be. One’s own conscience remains the ultimate arbiter.”
― Lama Surya Das

“The more truthful I am with myself and others, the more my conscience is clear and tranquil. Thus, I can more thoroughly and unequivocally inhabit the present moment and accept everything that happens without fear, knowing that what goes around comes around (the law of karma). Ethical morality and self-discipline represent the good ground, or stable basis. Mindful awareness is the skillful and efficacious grow-path, or way. Wisdom and compassion constitute the fruit, or result. This is the essence of Buddhism [...]”
― Lama Surya Das, Buddha Is as Buddha Does: The Ten Original Practices for Enlightened Living

“It almost seems as though this roiling world is conspiring to test our patience at every turn. In fact, it is. With this in mind, we would be wise to look on our imperfect environment as a teacher rather than an antagonist. It constantly shows us that we need to be patient on an ongoing basis, not just every now and then, if we´re going to realize true inner peace, happiness, and fulfillment.”
― Lama Surya Das, Buddha Is as Buddha Does: The Ten Original Practices for Enlightened Living

“I've also learned that you don't always get to pick the people with whom you travel the journey. You sometimes may think you do, but don't be deceived. And the corollary of that - and this was my real lesson - is that you start to realize that you can love even the people you don't like and must love and help everyone.”
― Lama Surya Das, Awakening the Buddha Within: Tibetan Wisdom for the Western World

“Everything passes, nothing remains. Understand this, loosen your grip and fine serenity...”
― Lama Surya Das

“The heart is an organ of perception.”
― Lama Surya Das, Words of Wisdom

“It is not the outer objects that entangle us. It is the inner clinging that entangles us." - Tilopa”
― Lama Surya Das, Awakening the Buddha Within: Tibetan Wisdom for the Western World

“By meditating, we´re learning to disengage ourselves from habitual clinging and disperse the defilements and obscurations that hinder our capacity to serve others, such as illusory feelings of scarcity and fears of deprivation. We gradually learn to be more conscious and make better choices. We develop simplicity instead of comlexity, open-mindedness instead of narrow-mindedness, flexibility rather than rigidity. We feel ourselves to be more available to others and to give more generously of ourselves.”
― Lama Surya Das, Buddha Is as Buddha Does: The Ten Original Practices for Enlightened Living

“Before speaking, recognize what motivates your words.”
― Lama Surya Das

“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded. —RALPH WALDO EMERSON”
― Surya Das, Awakening the Buddha Within: Eight Steps to Enlightenment

“You are in charge of your own karma, your own life, your own spiritual path, and your own liberation, just as I am in charge of mine.”
― Lama Surya Das, Awakening the Buddha Within: Tibetan Wisdom for the Western World

“Learning how to love is the goal and the purpose of spiritual life—not learning how to develop psychic powers, not learning how to bow, chant, do yoga, or even meditate, but learning to love. Love is the truth. Love is the light.”
― Lama Surya Das

“You don’t need to see different things, but rather to see things differently.”
― Lama Surya Das, Awakening the Buddha Within: Eight Steps to Enlightenment

“Our sorrows provide us with the lessons we most need to learn.”
― Lama Surya Das, Letting Go Of The Person You Used To Be: lessons on change, love and spiritual transformation from highly revered spiritual leader Lama Surya Das

“With every breath, the old moment is lost; a new moment arrives. We exhale and we let go of the old moment. It is lost to us. In doing so, we let go of the person we used to be. We inhale and breathe in the moment that is becoming. In doing so, we welcome the person we are becoming. We repeat the process. This is meditation. This is renewal. This is life.”
― Lama Surya Das, Letting Go Of The Person You Used To Be: lessons on change, love and spiritual transformation from highly revered spiritual leader Lama Surya Das

“Don't do things that everyone can do,Do things that everyone cannot do”
― surya, Awakening the Buddha Within: Tibetan Wisdom for the Western World

“The thought manifests as the word; The word manifests as the deed; The deed develops into habit; And habit hardens into character; So watch the thought and its ways with care, And let it spring from love Born out of concern for all beings…. As the shadow follows the body, as we think, so we become. —FROM THE DHAMMAPADA (SAYINGS OF THE BUDDHA)”
― Surya Das, Awakening the Buddha Within: Eight Steps to Enlightenment

“pleasure and pain arise from virtuous and non-virtuous actions which come not from outside, but from within yourself.”
― Lama Surya Das, The Big Questions: How to Find Your Own Answers to Life's Essential Mysteries

“For it is not what happens to us that determines our character, our experience, our karma, and our destiny - but how we relate to what happens.”
― Lama Surya Das, Letting Go Of The Person You Used To Be: lessons on change, love and spiritual transformation from highly revered spiritual leader Lama Surya Das

“Often we cling to habits that aren't even comforting or satisfying, simply because we are unable to let go or explore new ways to do things.”
― Lama Surya Das, Letting Go Of The Person You Used To Be: lessons on change, love and spiritual transformation from highly revered spiritual leader Lama Surya Das

“Non-attachment is not complacency. It doesn't imply a lack of caring and commitment. The philosophy of non-attachment is based in the understanding that holding on too tightly to those things, which in any case are always going to be slipping through our fingers, hurts and gives us rope burn.”
― Lama Surya Das, Letting Go Of The Person You Used To Be: lessons on change, love and spiritual transformation from highly revered spiritual leader Lama Surya Das

“It is usually a mistake to believe that any opinion or situation is objectively good or bad, since everything depends on the perspective of the viewer.”
― Lama Surya Das, Letting Go Of The Person You Used To Be: lessons on change, love and spiritual transformation from highly revered spiritual leader Lama Surya Das

“We all have certain desires and undesired outcomes related to whatever possible course and attitude we take in life, whether it be at the larger macro scale (what shall I do with the rest of my life?) or at the micro level (as in, what route shall I take to work this morning). These include all the myriad choices we make each hour and each day. These choices determine our karma and our destiny. It's no accident, nor any great mystery, how this evolves; although one would have to utterly omniscient to understand all the many gross and subtle interconnections and causative links that determine happenings and outcomes.”
― Lama Surya Das, Letting Go Of The Person You Used To Be: lessons on change, love and spiritual transformation from highly revered spiritual leader Lama Surya Das