Henepola Gunaratana Quotes

If you consume something that's poisonous, you don't consciously think of vomiting; your body just does it. It's a reflex. When I'm happy, I don't instantly feel the need to get rid of that feeling. But when I'm sad, I think maybe that's what happens.

Beauty in music is too often confused with something that lets the ears lie back in an easy chair. Many sounds that we are used to do not bother us, and for that reason we are inclined to call them beautiful. Frequently, when a new or unfamiliar work is accepted as beautiful on its first hearing, its fundamental quality is one that tends to put the mind to sleep.

We manufacture anger to give ourselves the illusion of power when we feel weak and helpless.

When we dislike someone, or feel threatened by someone, the natural tendency is to focus on something we dislike about the person, something that irritates us. Unfortunately, when we do this--instead of seeing the deeper beauty of the person and giving them energy--we take energy away and actually do them harm. All they know is that they suddenly feel less beautiful and less confident, and it is because we sapped their energy.

When you allow a person's words to upset you, you're giving away your power.

Nobody can make you angry without your consent, nobody can disappoint you without your consent, you have to give people consent to do these things.

If someone down-votes you, or you don't get a like, or someone says something not cool, you project onto it the person or the people who have hurt you the most in life.

There is no hate without fear. Hate is crystallized fear, fear's dividend, fear objectivized. We hate what we fear and so where hate is, fear is lurking. Thus we hate what threatens our person, our liberty, our privacy, our income, our popularity, our vanity and our dreams and plans for ourselves. If we can isolate this element in what we hate we may be able to cease from hating... Hate is the consequence of fear; we fear something before we hate; a child who fears noises becomes the man who hates them.

We have to lie to ourselves to live. Otherwise, we'd go crazy.

By all means give vent to your anger, let it out in nondestructive ways--if you are still deciding to have it. But begin to think of yourself as someone who can learn to think new thoughts when you are frustrated, so that the immobilizing anger can be replaced by more fulfilling emotions. Annoyance, irritation, and disappointment are feelings that you will very likely continue to experience, since the world will never be the way you want it. But anger, that hurtful emotional response to obstacles, can be eliminated.

I can't even say the word, it's too early in the day to get upset.

When you're in a depressed state, having something really bad happen gives you kind of a life again.

To most people, I fancy, the stars are beautiful; but if you asked why, they would be at a loss to reply, until they remembered what they had heard about astronomy, and the great size and distance and possible habitation of those orbs. ... [We] persuade ourselves that the power of the starry heavens lies in the suggestion of astronomical facts.

If you’re aggressive in your dealings, that’s how you’ll be regarded in the world. You might smile and give generously, but if you frequently explode in anger, people never feel comfortable in your presence and you’ll never have peace of mind.

After I stopped dancing, I was unable to listen to beautiful music.

Understand that all emotions serve you. Those you once thought of as negative emotions are merely calls to action. For example, if you feel frustrated it means that you believe things could be better, and they're not. This is a call to action telling you there's something you must do to make this better now. This "negative" emotion is actually a gift if you use it effectively.

Throughout the ordeal, I learned that getting mad was easier than being sad. Anger was something I could control. I could settle into an easy rhythm of blame and hate. Focus my energy on something than the ache in my heart.

I'd rather deal with anger than apathy.

When we see something beautiful it calls up raw, naked emotion and that's an embarrassing situation to be in.

Babies are like poems. They're beautiful to their creator, but to other people, they're silly and they're irritating.

... every time I got disappointed I'd remember the Roseannadanna philosophy that says that you shouldn't cry over split milk 'cause if you spill some milk and instead of cleaning it up you just walk over it and start crying, they're gonna put you on lithium.

Beauty is no material thing. Beauty cannot be copied. Beauty is the sensation of pleasure on the mind of the seer. No thing is beautiful. But all things await the sensitive and imaginative mind that may be aroused to pleasurable emotion at sight of them. This is beauty.

When a man gives way to anger, he only harms himself.

Our anger and annoyance are more detrimental to us than the things themselves which anger or annoy us.

Everything makes me angry, unless it makes me sad.