Bruce Behymer

“The Buddhist explanation”
― Pema Chödrön, Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears

“If we’ve got unfinished business, let’s finish it. You could wait your whole life to say a sentence like that and not have the presence of mind to say it when the time comes. That sort of level-headedness isn’t the product of upbringing or practice. You’re either born with it or you’re not. And mostly, you’re not.”
― Amor Towles, The Lincoln Highway

“The Buddhist explanation is that we feel this uneasiness because we’re always trying to get ground under our feet and it never quite works. We’re always looking for a permanent reference point, and it doesn’t exist. Everything is impermanent. Everything is always changing—fluid, unfixed, and open. Nothing is pin-down-able the way we’d like it to be. This is not actually bad news, but we all seem to be programmed for denial. We have absolutely no tolerance for uncertainty.”
― Pema Chödrön, Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears

“ideal spiritual journey needs the balance of “gloriousness” and “wretchedness.” If it were all glory, just one success after another, we’d get extremely arrogant and completely out of touch with human suffering. On the other hand, if it were all wretchedness and we never had any insights, and never experienced joy or inspiration, then we’d get so discouraged that we’d give up. So, what’s needed is a balance. But as a species, we tend to overemphasize the wretchedness.”
― Pema Chödrön, Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears