Alan Cohen Quotes

The mind is always present. You just don't see it.

Where the mind goes, the man follows.

One of the ideas that runs through this book [Lincoln in the Bardo] is this Buddhist notion that the mind is incredibly powerful; not the brain but the mind.

Does the body rule the mind or does the mind rule the body? I dunno.

it is in our minds that we live much of our life.

Our thoughts are certainly part of us; they come from us, but we are not our thoughts. Have you ever woken up in the morning and said to yourself, 'I am not going to think today; I am too tired'? No, of course not. Just as breathing happens and is constant, thoughts happen, and they are also constant.

The mind is the effect, not the cause.

When an idea exclusively occupies the mind, it is transformed into an actual physical or mental state.

The future is to heal back to the mind again. Recognizing that the mind is all powerful - it controls every cell to every degree of its genetic expression.

Free will is to mind, what chance is to matter

Is action merely the incidental product of thought, or is thought the consequential product of action?

Your mind will take on the character of your most frequent thoughts: souls are dyed by thoughts.

If you think about something for long enough,' she explained, 'more than likely, that thing will happen.' She tapped her head. 'It's all in the mind.

Mind is a door that leads you outside in the world; meditation is the door that leads you to your interiority - to the very innermost shrine of your being.

Further conceive, I beg, that a stone, while continuing in motion, should be capable of thinking and knowing, that it is endeavoring, as far as it can, to continue to move. Such a stone, being conscious merely of its own endeavor and not at all indifferent, would believe itself to be completely free, and would think that it continued in motion solely because of its own wish. This is that human freedom, which all boast that they possess, and which consists solely in the fact, that men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined.

The mental never influences the physical. It is always the physical that modifies the mental, and when we think that the mind is diseased, it is always an illusion.

If you have the thought in your mind that you are sick, you surely will be.

Health is not a condition of matter, but of Mind; nor can the material senses bear reliable testimony on the subject of health.

I realize the dominating thoughts of my mind will eventually reproduce themselves in outward, physical action, and gradually transform themselves into physical reality.

A conscious mind is a mind with a self in it.

All the physical comes from the mental.

Just as a pebble thrown into the water creates ripples, so our thoughts create similar effects on our palms.

It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms.

My view is that our minds are incredibly powerful animals that are, during life, kept somewhat in check by the load of our bodies. Once that load is gone (or so some ancient texts teach us) the mind is like a horse off the tether. So the habits we get into here might have something to do with what happens to us afterwards. An exciting but harrowing idea, given the everyday state of my mind. But also hopeful, since that's something a person can work with.

It's just a constant thing when the mind starts to wake up to itself.