Ralph Verlohr > Ralph's Quotes

“Wisdom is knowing I am nothing,
Love is knowing I am everything,
and between the two my life moves.”
― Nisargadatta Maharaj

“All you want is to be happy. All your desires, whatever they may be, are longing for happiness. Basically, you wish yourself well...desire by itself is not wrong. It is life itself, the urge to grow in knowledge and experience. It is choices you make that are wrong. To imagine that some little thing-food, sex, power, fame-will make you happy is to decieve oneself. Only something as vast and deep as your real self can make you truly and lastingly happy.”
― Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

“The journey itself is my home.”
― Matsuo Basho

“Sitting quietly, doing nothing, Spring comes, and the grass grows, by itself.”
― Basho

“Your duty is to be and not to be this or that. 'I am that I am' sums up the whole truth. The method is summed up in the words 'Be still'. What does stillness mean? It means destroy yourself. Because any form or shape is the cause for trouble. Give up the notion that 'I am so and so'. All that is required to realize the Self is to be still. What can be easier than that?”
― Ramana Maharshi

“A quiet mind is all you need. All else will happen rightly, once your
mind is quiet. As the sun on rising makes the world active, so does
self-awareness affect changes in the mind. In the light of calm and
steady self-awareness, inner energies wake up and work miracles
without any effort on your part”
― Nisargadatta Maharaj

“If the mind falls asleep, awaken it. Then if it starts wandering, make it quiet. If you reach the state where there is neither sleep nor movement of mind, stay still in that, the natural (real) state.”
― Ramana Maharshi, The Collected Works of Ramana Maharshi

“Become conscious of being conscious. Say or think “I am”, and add nothing to it. Be aware of the stillness that follows the “I am”. Sense your presence, the naked unveiled, unclothed beingness. It is untouched by young or old, rich or poor, good or bad, or any other attributes. It is the spacious womb of all creation, all form.”
― Ramana Maharshi

“All that is required to realise the Self is to “Be Still.”
― Ramana Maharshi

“If you want to travel the Way of Buddhas and Zen masters, then expect nothing, seek nothing, and grasp nothing.”
― Dogen Zenji

“If you are unable to find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?”
― Dogen

“Life is like stepping onto a boat which is about to sail out to sea and sink.”
― Shunryu Suzuki

“Calmness of mind does not mean you should stop your activity. Real calmness should be found in activity itself. We say, "It is easy to have calmness in inactivity, it is hard to have calmness in activity, but calmness in activity is true calmness.”
― Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice

“Whereever you are, you are one with the clouds and one with the sun and the stars you see. You are one with everything. That is more true than I can say, and more true than you can hear.”
― Shunryu Suzuki

“Vast emptiness, nothing holy.”
― Bodhidharma

“Not thinking about anything is Zen. Once you know this, walking, sitting, or lying down, everything you do is Zen.”
― Bodhidharma, The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma

“We think that the point is to pass the test or overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It's just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.”
― Pema Chödrön

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“Along this road goes no one, this autumn eve.”
― Matsuo Bashō

“Old pond — frogs jumped in — sound of water”
― Matsuo Bashō, Basho: The Complete Haiku

“If someone asks
about the mind of this monk,
say it is no more than
a passage of wind
in the vast sky.”
― Ryōkan, Sky Above, Great Wind: The Life and Poetry of Zen Master Ryokan

“Focus your mind on one thing, absorb the old examples, study the actions of the masters- penetrate deeply into a single form of practice.”
― Dōgen

“The foolish reject what they see, not what they think;

the wise reject what they think, not what they see.”
― Huang Po

“One must be deeply aware of the impermanence of the world.”
― Dōgen, A Primer of Soto Zen: A Translation of Dogen's Shobogenzo Zuimonki

“Your body is like a dew-drop on the morning grass, your life is as brief as a flash of lightning. Momentary and vain, it is lost in a moment. (From 'Fukan zazengi')”
― Dōgen Zenji

“Before one studies Zen, mountains are mountains and waters are waters; after a first glimpse into the truth of Zen, mountains are no longer mountains and waters are no longer waters; after enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and waters once again waters.”
― Dōgen

“Re-examine all you have been told. Dismiss what insults your soul.”
― Walt Whitman

“You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.”
― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

“One day you will ask me which is more important? My life or yours? I will say mine and you will walk away not knowing that you are my life.”
― Khalil Gibran

“Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything - anger, anxiety, or possessions - we cannot be free.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation