Michel de Montaigne Quotes

You know, it's hard sometimes to just detach yourself from what you're doing.

Easy mind, light heart. A mind that is too easy hides a heart that is too heavy.

Set aside all involvements and let the myriad things rest. Zazen is not thinking of good, not thinking of bad. It is not conscious endeavour. It is not introspection. Do not desire to become a buddha; let sitting or lying down drop away. Be moderate in eating and drinking. Be mindful of the passing of time, and engage yourself in zazen as though you are saving your head from fire.

I would rather have these things weigh on my mind. At the end of this tunnel of guilt and shame, there must be a light of some kind.

No effort is required to define or even attain happiness, but enormous concentration is needed to abandon everything else.

Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity.

It is for little souls, that truckle under the weight of affairs, not to know how clearly to disengage themselves, and not to know how to lay them aside and take them up again.

The knowledge and skills you have achieved are meant to be forgotten so you can float comfortably in emptiness, without obstruction.

Your first daily priority should be stillness, attention to what you really know and what you really feel.

Remember that you have only one soul; that you have only one death to die; that you have only one life. . . . If you do this, there will be many things about which you care nothing.

Acquire the art of detachment, the virtue of method, and the quality of thoroughness, but above all the grace of humility.

Letting go is freedom. When you find yourself in a useless battle, you merely walk off the battlefield.

Forgiveness isn’t my best thing. Easier staying pissed. But I’m tired of being pissed all the time. Tired of feeling hurt by stuff that can never be fixed because it is an indelible part of the past.

The life of action need not be renounced. If you meditate for an hour or two every day you can then carry on with your duties. If you meditate in the right manner then the current of mind induced will continue to flow even in the midst of your work.

So, in meditation practice, the best way to get somewhere is to let go of trying to get anywhere at all.

The critical element in meditation practice is beginning again. Everyone loses focus at times, everyone loses interest at times, and everyone gets distracted over and over again. What is essential, and also incredibly transforming, is realizing that we have the ability to begin again, without blaming or judging ourselves, without thinking we have failed, without losing heart, we can, and need to, constantly be beginning again.

...The sage, traveling all day, Does not lose sight of his baggage. Though there are beautiful things to be seen, He remains unattached and calm.

Be occupied, then, with what you really value and let the thief take something else.

If it means something, take it to heart. If it means nothing, it's nothing. Let it go.

The secret of meditation is the art of unlearning. Mind is learning; meditation is unlearning: that is - die constantly to your experience; let it not imprison you; experience becomes a dead weight in the living and flowing, riverlike consciousness.

Wishes and fears are illusions, Dil Bahadur, not realities. You must practice detachment.

It becomes necessary to learn how to clear the mind of all clouds, to free it of all useless ballast and debris by dismissing the burden of too much concern with material things.

Let go of thought, become still and alert, and don't try to understand or explain.

... one's own faults are always a heavy chain to drag through life and one can't help groaning under the weight now and then.