Gerald Vann Quotes

My motto is never to hold on to anything. I accept and then let go: not just the negatives, but the praise, too. Or it'll get to my head.

Nothing belongs to me. Everything comes and goes. Serenity is an open door.

Surrender becomes so much easier when you realize the fleeting nature of all experiences and that the world cannot give you anything of lasting value. You then continue to meet people, to be involved in experience and activities, but without the wants and fears of the egoic self. That is to say, you no longer demand that a situation, person, place, or event should satisfy you or make you happy. It's passing and imperfect nature is allowed to be.

To remember non-attachment is to remember what freedom is all about. If we get attached, even to a beautiful state of being, we are caught, and ultimately we will suffer. We work to observe anything that comes our way, experience it while it is here, and be able to let go of it.

I always take kind of a zen view of casting and I really don't remember people who passed. I kind of turn it over to the universe and figure, 'Wow, I guess that wasn't meant to be.' It doesn't sit with me.

Life is a tide; float on it. Go down with it and go up with it, but be detached. Then it is not difficult.

Everything is Song. Everything is Silence. Since it all turns out to be illusion, perfectly being what it is, having nothing to do with good or bad, you are free to die laughing.

Let come what comes, let go what goes. See what remains.

I'm just dealing with what's happening, with what is. Joy, happiness, good, bad, all those terms are meaningless to me.

I work very hard every day not to have a lot of expectations. You just let go of the results, because a book will be on bookshelves and in libraries long after we're gone, and, in some ways, whatever happens is none of our business.

Stand in that reverent attitude to the whole universe, and then will come perfect non attachment.

The secret of zen is just two words: not... always... so.

Winning gives birth to hostility Losing, one lies down in pain. The calmed lie down with ease, having set winning and losing aside.

No matter how many times I tell you this, you're still thinking, thinking, judging, judging, coming to conclusions, trying to work out your life. You have to let go. Totally, absolutely, completely. You have to let go so completely that you will feel no body, no mind, no pain, nothing.

If you were wise enough to know that this life would consist mostly of letting go of things you wanted, then why not get good at the letting go, rather than the trying to have?

I have to not take myself too seriously and I have to realise that if it is meant to be, it will be.

Nothing is to be clung to as I, me or mine

Inner peace begins when we stop saying of things, 'I have lost it' and instead say, 'It has been returned to where it came from.' Why should it be any concern of yours who gives your things back to the world that gave them to you? The important thing is to take great care with what you have while the world lets you have it.

Forget about winning and losing, forget about pride and pain

At least half of your mind is always thinking, I'll be leaving; this won't last. It's a good Buddhist attitude. If I were a Buddhist, this would be a great help. As it is, I'm just sad.

We can't control what thoughts and emotions arise within us, nor can we control the universal truth that everything changes. But we can learn to step back and rest in the awareness of what's happening. That awareness can be our refuge.

The more you cling to things, The more you love them, The more the pain you suffer, When they're taken from you.

Life cannot be possessed. You cannot have it in your fist. If you want to have it, you have to keep your hands open.

Once you accept, truly accept, that stuff will happen to you and there is nothing you can do about it, stress miraculously leaves your life.