Karolina Frycze > Karolina's Quotes

“It is the desire for peace of mind that is the biggest block to happiness and peace….in fact, it is the only block. Or as Alan put it so perfectly, “The reason you want to be better is the reason why you aren’t.” Do you still think you can be happy by trying to be happy?”
― Chris Niebauer, The Neurotic's Guide to Avoiding Enlightenment: How the Left-brain Plays Unending Games of Self-improvement

“Biography is fiction, autobiography is hopelessly inventive” and “The self is a fiction invented by the brain.” You might also find yourself emphasizing this is “Just my opinion” or “The way I see it” rather than “This is the way it is” and this is enough. This small difference is enough to change how we live with each other and ourselves.”
― Chris Niebauer, The Neurotic's Guide to Avoiding Enlightenment: How the Left-brain Plays Unending Games of Self-improvement

“it is the process of thinking that creates the self, rather than there being a self having any independent existence separate from thought. The self is more like a verb than a noun. To take it a step further, the implication is that without thought, the self does not, in fact, exist.”
― Chris Niebauer, No Self, No Problem: How Neuropsychology Is Catching Up to Buddhism

“In one study, subjects listened to music while half of them tried as hard as they could to be happy.5 The half that tried to be happy were less happy than the group that just listened. Another study found that those who put a high value on happiness had more negative emotions.6 Of course, long ago the Buddha explained how desire leads to suffering; this seems to also hold even for the desire to be happy.”
― Chris Niebauer, No Self, No Problem: How Neuropsychology Is Catching Up to Buddhism

“if you have a why, you can deal with any how.”
― Chris Niebauer, No Self, No Problem: How Neuropsychology Is Catching Up to Buddhism

“because many people are not conscious of the left-brain interpreter, they can't even consider that their thoughts are interpretations, but rather feel secure they are seeing things “as they really are.”
― Chris Niebauer, No Self, No Problem: How Neuropsychology Is Catching Up to Buddhism

“the left brain also becomes so dependent on language that it mistakes the map of reality for reality itself.”
― Chris Niebauer, No Self, No Problem: How Neuropsychology Is Catching Up to Buddhism

“I invite you to redirect awareness to the space between your hands, the space between you and the next person you see, the space between any objects in front of you now. There is so much space that there are infinite variations of this practice, and you don't have to leave Earth to experience it. One practice is to look outward into the night sky and focus on the space between things. There is something about space that slows the mind, since the mind has no way to understand it because it has no content and no container.”
― Chris Niebauer, No Self, No Problem: How Neuropsychology Is Catching Up to Buddhism