Steve Hagen Quotes

The impossibility of arriving at Truth by giving up your own authority and following the lights of others. Such a path will only lead to an opinion.

[W]hat purpose does it serve to deny actual experience in order to run with an idea instead?

[W]hen you practise right meditation, you 'cease from practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words and following speech, and learn the backward step that turns your light inwardly to illuminate your self.

We're never called on to do what hurts. We just do what hurts out of ignorance and habit. Once we see what we're doing, we can stop.

We might think that by tossing a ball we initiate an action, but this is merely an arbitrary point in a beginningless line of action.

When we latch on to an identity, it's easy to take offence. But we offend ourselves. We lock ourselves into very rigid ways of seeing and thinking and reacting.

When we see Reality, we are completely beyond the world of words and concepts. We experience what words cannot express, what ideas cannot contain, what speech cannot communicate.

There's nothing to prove, nothing to figure out, nothing to get, nothing to understand. When we finally stop explaining everything to ourselves, we may discover that in silence, complete understanding is already there.

[L]iberation [doesn't occur] in wearing robes or performing ritual acts.

Neatly packaging everything gives us the illusion we ... know something.

[W]hen we speak about people based on what we think, feel, or hope rather than on what we observe or experience, we deprive them of their humanity. We have replaced what they are, in all their fluid vitality, with our own crystallised ideas, opinions, and beliefs.

Truth is not ... something to believe or disbelieve. The things we believe are always less than Truth[.]

we face the woeful prospect that we're intelligent creatures living in a meaningless world.

What makes human life
which is inseparable from this moment
so precious is its fleeting nature. And not that it doesn't last but that it never returns again.

Our problem is that we don't pay attention to what we actually know. We give our attention to what we think - to what we have ideas or beliefs about - and we discard what we actually see.

We've formed many a theory and belief, but as we look about the human world, it is clear that nobody actually knows what's going on. Yet claims to Truth are being made at every hand, including the claim that there is no Truth.

Good times come and go. And bad times do the same.

[W]e ignore the Whole, we're taken in by the parts. We're seduced by objects of our consciousness

[B]ecause of change, what we love continues to appear, and what we hate never lasts forever.

As little children we readily accept the first story we're given at home, or school, or church. We're told stories of nationalism, religion, racism, politics, and family. All too often we accept them before we learn to weigh them against other views. And all too often we're inclined to accept these (or other) frozen views rather than see each situation for what it is.

Liberation of mind is realising that we don't need to buy any story at all. It's realising that before our confused thought, there actually is Reality. We can see it. All we have to do it to fully engage in this moment as it has come to be.

Usually we hold a frozen view of ourselves as well as of the world 'out there.' ... We identify with groups, behaviours, habits, and beliefs.

Why would anyone want to awaken to the Reality that they're not even here in the first place?

[I]mpermanence [is] the very thing that makes [life] vibrant, wonderful, and alive.

This will never come again

[O]nce in a while there's that fleeting moment when the kindest thing you can do for another is to utter a severe word or a sharp observation that may hurt momentarily;

This moment is complete unto itself. There's nothing lacking in this moment

By our very attempt to grasp an explanation, we leave things out.

[A] view of the world is nothing more than a set of beliefs, a way to freeze the world in our mind. ... [T]his can never match Reality, ... because the world isn't frozen.

If we believe in ... an everlasting self, it's tantamount to claiming that we have existed before all else came into being. We may as well fancy ourselves as being the cause of all creation.

Buddhism is not a belief system. It's not about accepting certain tenets or believing a set of claims or principles. In fact, it's quite the opposite. It's about examining the world clearly and carefully, about testing everything and every idea. Buddhism is about seeing. It's about knowing rather than believing or hoping or wishing. It's also about not being afraid to examine anything and everything, including our own personal agendas.

True freedom doesn't lie in the maximization of choice, but, ironically, is most easily found in a life where there is little choice.

We can't find any definitive beginning or end to … anything really.

We commonly see things 'out there' and go after them. Our mind is thus characterised by division and separation.

And here we are with our improved human world that we've spent a great deal of time and energy working on. We've improved the rivers and the lakes and the land and our society and our ways of living to the point where we now wonder if the human race will survive.

Rituals, ceremonies, prayers, and special outfits are inevitable, but they do not - they cannot - express the heart of what the Buddha taught. In fact, all too often, such things get in the way. They veil the simple wisdom of the Buddha's words, and distract us from it.

Buddha is not someone you pray to, or try to get something from. Nor is a buddha someone you bow down to. A buddha is simply a person who is awake - nothing more or less.

We can only be here. We can't leave. We are always here.

Right view is not a concept or belief. ... [It] is simply seeing Reality as it is, here and now, moment after moment[;] ... relying on bare attention ... before conceptual thought arises[;] ... relying on what we actually experience rather than on what we think.

[W]e're caught by our concepts ... [C]oncepts are not Reality.

We pass by the joys of life without knowing we've missed anything.

Meditation begins now, right here. It can't begin someplace else or at some other time. To paraphrase the great Zen master Dogen, "If you want to practice awareness, then practice awareness without delay." If you wish to know a mind that is tranquil and clear, sane and peaceful, you must take it up now. If you wish to free yourself from the frantic television mind that runs our lives, begin with the intention to be present now.

Nobody can bring awareness to your life but you.

Meditation is not a self-help program--a way to better ourselves so we can get what we want. Nor is it a way to relax before jumping back into busyness. It's not something to do once in awhile, either, whenever you happen to feel like it.

Instead, meditation is a practice that saturates your life and in time can be brought into every activity. It is the transformation of mind from bondage to freedom.

In practicing meditation, we go nowhere other than right here where we now stand, where we now sit, where we now live and breathe. In meditation we return to where we already are--this shifting, changing ever-present now.

If you wish to take up meditation, it must be now or never.

It's called enlightenment. It's nothing more or less than seeing things as they are rather than as we wish or believe them to be.

The buddha-dharma ... is about directly seeing Truth, prior to forming any ideas about it. It is about responding to each particular situation as it comes ... , not according to some ... program of dos and don'ts.

We imagine that things come into existence, endure for a while, and then pass out of existence

Every atom, every minuscule part of the universe is nothing other than movement and change.

This desire to hold on, to somehow stop change in its tracks, is the greatest source of woe and horror and trouble in our lives.

One day, soon after the Buddha's enlightenment, a man saw the Buddha walking toward him. The man had not heard of the Buddha, but he could see that there was something different about the man who was approaching, so he was moved to ask, Are you a god?

By simply attending to how we feel without trying to judge or change our feelings, we may notice that there's no real distinction between self and other. If it's a grey day inside, ... it's a grey day outside as well.

No words - Buddha's, mine, or anyone else's - can see for you.

We all know the maxim "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." It's because we want the horse to drink that we become frustrated, because it's literally not in our power to accomplish the job we've set out to do for ourselves.

There's no rule in the end, but only the situation and the inclination of your mind

Nothing holds us back but our thoughts.

Belief is at best an educated, informed conjecture about Reality.

You want to not have any problems.

Buddhist writings (including this book) can be likened to a raft. A raft is a very handy thing to carry you across the water, from one shore to another. But once you've reached the other shore, you no longer need the raft. Indeed, if you wish to continue your journey beyond the shore, you must leave the raft behind. Our problem is that we tend to fall in love with the raft.

We may also notice … each feeling … is transitory and impermanent. Eventually, through simple observation, our feelings, while no less vivid, will become less urgent, and will cease to have such a firm hold on our emotions and actions. We will be able to see each feeling as it arises without feeling compelled to act on it.

[S]elfless action, action done while free of a sense of self. Action in which you don't see yourself as separate from other things.

Give your mind a lot of space and it quiets down; try to control, quiet, or restrict it, and it goes wild.

Our ignorance is such that most of us don't realize we're thirsty. Or, if we realize we're thirsty, we look for water in the wrong place. We go into fire looking for cool refreshment. And often we're confused about what our thirst actually is.

[E]ven in getting the wonderful things we long for, we tend to live in want of something more[.]

The moment that we hold some solidified idea about Reality- rather than relying on direct perception of the world- we inevitably give rise to anxiety and fear.

A buddha recognizes that anything put into speech is never completely reliable.

Good' crystallised ... breeds arrogance and hostility

The buddha-dharma does not invite us to dabble in abstract notions. Rather, the task it presents us with is to attend to what we actually experience, right in this moment. You don't have to look "over there." You don't have to figure anything out. You don't have to acquire anything. And you don't have to run off to Tibet, or Japan, or anywhere else. You wake up right here. In fact, you can only wake up right here.
So you don't have to do the long search, the frantic chase, the painful quest. You're already right where you need to be.