Joko Beck Quotes

Let your mind alone, and see what happens.

True happiness is... to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.

Mindfulness is a quality that's always there. It's an illusion that there's a meditation and post-meditation period, which I always find amusing, because you're either mindful or you're not.

You need not aspire for or get any new state. Get rid of your present thoughts, that is all.

In this there is no judgment and no blame, for we seek not to perfect the world but to perfect our love for what is on this earth.

Mindfulness is not about getting anywhere else.

All meditations are nothing but efforts to bring you to the present. When you live in the present moment, with no past hanging around you, with no future projection, you are free from life and death, you are free from body and mind. You are free - simply free - you are freedom.

In awareness there is no becoming, there is no end to be gained. There is silent observation without choice and condemnation, from which there comes understanding.

The one philosophy or religion I find I am most close to is the Buddhist one. I think it is the one that respects others and the one that doesn't say that this is the only way. I think happiness is the moment when - if you've forgotten those little things - they suddenly come back into focus for you.

Zen says: be empty. Look without any idea. Look into the nature of things but with no idea, with no prejudice, with no presupposition.

Zen has no theory. It is a non-theoretical approach into reality. It has no doctrine and no dogma - hence it has no church, no priest, no pope.

It taught him how to listen -- how to listen with a quiet heart and a waiting soul, open soul, without passion, without desire, without judgment, without opinion.

To be unattached is not to renounce the world. If you renounce the world you are attached to the world; otherwise why should you renounce it? What is the point in renouncing it if you are not attached to it? Only attachment renounces. If you are really non-attached there is no question of any renunciation.

Those who think to reach God by running away from the world, when and where do they expect to meet him? We are reaching him here in this very spot, now at this very moment.

Practice the precept: find without seeking

He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time.

Renunciation - non-resistance - non-destructiveness - are the ideals to be attained through less and less worldliness, less and less resistance, less and less destructiveness. Keep the ideal in view and work towards it. None can live in the world without resistance, without destruction, without desire. The world has not come to that state yet when the ideal can be realised in society.

What would it be like if I could accept life--accept this moment--exactly as it is?

You've been somebody long enough. You spent the first half of your life becoming somebody. Now you can work on becoming nobody, which is really somebody. For when you become nobody there is no tension, no pretense, no one trying to be anyone or anything. The natural state of the mind shines through unobstructed - and the natural state of the mind is pure love.

In this moment that blooms and fades as it passes, he is enough, and all is well in the world.

It is what it is. You are what you it. There are no mistakes.

Open-mindedness is the harvest of a quiet eye.

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.

When we really see other people as they are without taking it personally, we can never be hurt by what they say or do.