Alan Cohen Quotes

The real meditative practice is to open up to the full range of what happens in life. And parenting is a fantastic arena for doing that kind of spiritual training. It's as much a potential door into enlightenment as anything else.

I've learned that the perfect picture that I hold in my mind of what my life looks like is constantly changing, growing, evolving. I remind myself that I am exactly where I need to be in my life; otherwise, I would surely be somewhere else.

Buddhism has turned me on to my humanness, and is challenging my humanness so that I can become more human.

I don't need to be better than anybody or worse than anybody to feel better about myself. I just need to stick on my own path and stay in the moment as best I can.

My main hope for myself is to be where I am.

For me, it really is about the self-acceptance... the more time that I spend really accepting and allowing myself to be exactly where I am, the faster it is I move towards what I wanna be doing.

The way I try to live is 'Be here now.' Be your best self now.

Prince didn't want to celebrate birthdays but to live life, to elevate and educate to the next level of enlightenment.

You don't need to figure out exactly who you are right now. Just live your life.

At the Cruiserweight Classic finale, I said... I don't know if people had looked it up, or if they had heard it before, but it was an old Zen proverb. 'Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, you chop wood, carry water.' It can be interpreted a lot of ways, but for the most part it's about staying in the moment.

Don't put so much pressure on yourself. Be happy with who you are and know that being you is the best thing you can do for yourself. You've got a long time to figure everything out and there's no rush. Enjoy the now.

Meditation is not about getting out of ourselves or achieving something better. It is about getting in touch with what you already are.

Whatever is your present experience, you can recognize the spaciousness that allows it to be. You are this spaciousness, this awareness, this love. Deeper love and more spacious awareness is the best lesson you can get from any experience.

The way to have the life we want is to receive more deeply the life we have. Sometimes we keep our own life at arm's length, thinking we'll wait until circumstances improve before giving it all we've got. But life is just a reflection of consciousness, so it's never going to give any more to us than we give to it. Don't wait for a perfect life; breathe in the life that's already perfect.

But I am learning that perfection isn't what matters. In fact, it's the very thing that can destroy you if you let it.

Reverence makes it possible to be whole, though ignorant. It is the wholeness of understanding.

Practice can be stated very simply. It is moving from a life of hurting myself and others to a life of not hurting myself and others. That seems so simple-except when we substitute for real practice some idea that we should be different or better than we are, or that our lives should be different from the way they are. When we substitute our ideas about what should be (such notions as "I should not be angry or confused or unwilling") for our life as it truly is, then we're off base and our practice is barren.

Wherever you are is always the right place. There is never a need to fix anything, to hitch up the bootstraps of the soul and start at some higher place. Start right where you are.

The past is an illusion. You must learn to live in the present and accept yourself for what you are now. What you lack in flexibility and agility you must make up with knowledge and constant practice.

No matter where you are on your journey, that's exactly where you need to be. The next road is always ahead.

The truth is that there is no journey. You are right now what you are attempting to be. You are right now where you are attempting to go.

Never waste time and energy wishing you were somewhere else, doing something else. Accept your situation and realize you are where you are, doing what you are doing, for a very specific reason. Realize that nothing is by chance, that you have certain lessons to learn and that the situation you are in has been given to you to enable you to learn those lessons as quickly as possible, so that you can move onward and upward along this spiritual path.

Only in the reality of the present can we love, can we awaken, can we find peace and understanding and connection with ourselves and the world.

Fill yourself with the power of wisdom and enlightenment.

I think it's so important to have a practice, because the consciousness isn't perfection or enlightenment or any of that bullshit. The consciousness is, "Oh, I'm walking down the street and I'm doing nothing."