Sylvia Boorstein Quotes

Right Understanding means feeling terrible, remembering pain is finite, and taking some solace from that remembering. And, when things are pleasant, even splendidly pleasant, remembering impermanence doesn't diminish the experience--it enhances it [p. 33]

May I meet each moment fully and meet it as a friend.

Mindfulness, the aware, balanced acceptance of present experience, is at the heart of what the Buddha taught.

What if someone hurts you with a weapon? Wait. Think it over. You probably feel angry. That's normal. But wasn't it the stick striking your body that hurt you? Can you be angry at the stick? Of course not. Should you be angry at the wielder of the stick? Wouldn't it make more sense to be angry at the hatred in the mind of the stick wielder? If you think about it, isn't the end of hatred in the world what you want most of all? Why, then, would you add to it by giving energy to your anger? After all, it will pass on its own if left alone, especially if you respond to it with compassion.

Some of my most precious moments of insight have been those in which I have seen clearly that gratitude is the only possible response." (Sylvia Boorstein, from "You Don't Look Buddhist")

It is our own pain, and our own desire to be free of it, that alerts us to the suffering of the world. It is our personal discovery that pain can be acknowledged, even held lovingly, that enables us to look at the pain around us unflinchingly and feel compassion being born in us. We need to start with ourselves.

Knowing the truth brings happiness.

Buddha also said that the Dharma, like a bird, needs two wings to fly, and that the wing that balances Wisdom is compassion.

We don't get a choice about what hand we are dealt in this life.

The Buddha's criteria for Wise Speech include - in addition to the obvious expectation that speech be truthful - that it be timely, gentle, motivated by kindness, and helpful.

I love the phrase 'I am not afraid!' Maybe it's the best phrase we can say, other than 'I have everything I need.' Maybe they are the same. [p. 14]

When people ask the Dalai Lama, "Is Buddhism a religion?" he answers, "Yes, it is." Then they ask, "What kind of religion is it?" He responds, "My religion is kindness." You might think, "Everyone's is." Everyone's is. That's true. It's not complicated to describe the goal of a spiritual life. It's easier than you think to explain it. It's more difficult than you can imagine to do it.

Everything is always changing.
"There is a cause-and-effect lawfulness that governs all unfolding experience.
"What I do matters, but I am not in charge. Suffering results from struggling with what is beyond my control. [pp. 27-28]

Mindfulness is the aware, balanced acceptance of the present experience.
It isn't more complicated that that.
It is opening to or recieving the present moment, pleasant or unpleasant, just as it is,
without either clinging to it or rejecting it.

It is possible to cultivate a mind so spacious that it can be passionate and awake and responsive and involved and care about things, and noty struggle [p. 23]

Heir to your own karma doesn't mean 'You get what you deserve.' I think it means 'You get what you get.' Bad things happen to good people. My happiness depending on my action means, to me, that it depends on my action of choosing compassion
for myself as well as for everyone else
rather than contention. [p.61]

Fear doesn't frighten me as much as it used to. I know it's from clinging, and I know it will pass [p. 29].

Don't just do something, sit there!

Safely connected to my life, and reassured of my essential goodness, I feel at ease, at home, really in the most sublime of homes. [p. 58]

When we are relaxed and reasonable content, we are naturally wise. We accept that life is unpredictable, unreliable. We say jokingly or philosophically, "Nothing is sure except death and taxes," or "God willing and the creek don't rise," reminding each other that, notwithstanding the level of planning, we are continually dealing with being surprised. We get startled. We recover. We are disappointed. We adjust. Mostly-with Wisdom intact-we manage.

We are all dangling in mid-process between what already happened (which is just a memory) and what might happen (which is just an idea). Now is the only time anything happens. When we are awake in our lives, we know what's happening. When we're asleep, we don't see what's right in front of us.

May I meet this moment fully. May I meet it as a friend.

People are realizing that what seemed important to them in their lives-materialism and consumerism-doesn't work at all to make a happy heart. It actually makes an unhappy heart. And an unhappy world.

Although I knew what issues had been most difficult for me in my life, I may not have known the depth of the feeling I had about them ... When those stories, with their feelings, returned ... I paid attention to them. What I tell people now it, 'Try to keep your mind hospitable. This needs to visit for a while. Don't be afraid.' [p. 122]

The mind is like tofu. It tastes like whatever you marinate it in.

The Buddha taught that suffering is the extra pain in the mind that happens when we feel an anguished imperative to have things be different from how they are. We see it most clearly when our personal situation is painful and we want very much for it to change. It's the wanting very much that hurts so badly, the feeling of "I need this desperately," that paralyzes the mind. The "I" who wants so much feels isolated. Alone.

The path of compassion leads to the development of insight. But it doesn't work to say, "Ready, set, go! Be compassionate!" Beginning any practice depends on intention. Intention depends on intuiting-at least a little bit-the suffering inherent in the human condition and the pain we feel, and cause, when we act out of confusion. It also depends on trusting-at least a little bit-in the possibility of a contented, satisfied mind.

If anger arises in the mind in response to an outside event, it's helpful to look for either the saddening or frightening aspect of that event and then take whatever measures we can to address the sadness or the fear. Knowing that negativity or aversion is a transient energy never means to ignore it. It means to see it clearly, always, and work with it wisely [p. 85].

The next-to-last sentence that the Buddha is reported to have spoken as he was dying, before his final sentence of encouragement to his community, was Transient are all conditioned things.

Surrender means wisely accommodating ourselves to what is beyond our control.

Becoming aware of fragility, of temporality, of the fact that we will surely all be lost to one another, sooner or later, mandates a clear imperative to be totally kind and loving to each other always [p.119].

Sadness isn't a kilesha, a habit pattern evoked by challenge. Sadness is what the mind feels when it is bereaved or bereft. All the wisdom in the world about the inevitability of change or the lawfulness of karma does not ease the heaviness in the mind that we feel when we lose someone, or something, we hold dear [p. 148].

All losses are sad. The end of an important relationship is also a death. When people fall out of love with each other, or when what seemed like a solid friendship falls into ruin, the hope for a shared future
a hope that provided a context and a purpose to life
is gone. [p. 149]

Freedom of choice is possible. Life is going to unfold however it does: pleasant or unpleasant, disappointing or thrilling, expected or unexpected, all of the above! What a relief it would be to know that whatever wave comes along, we can ride it out with grace [p. 35].

Being trapped by fear is a form of delusion. Either I can do something or I can't. If I truly can't ... I don't do it. If I truly can, and it wold be a wholesome thing to do, I push myself [p. 39].

Ultimately ... it's not the stories that determine our choices, but the stories that we continue to choose.

If you take a deep breath and look around, 'Look what's happening to me!' can become 'Look what's happening!' And what's happening? The incredible drama of life is happening. And we're in it!

Suffering is the demand that experience be different from what it is.

The responses of friendliness, compassion, and appreciation that I felt ...
all situational permutations of basic goodwill
depended on my mind's being relaxed and alert enough to notice both what was happening around me and what was happening as my internal response. [p.50]

If I can't see around my personal story, I'll have no way to see sit in context: This is one event in a life of events. It is whatever it is, but it is temporal. The pain is terrible, but it won't last. I can manage it. or this joy is incredible, but it won't last. Celebrate it now! [pp. 104-105]

I think a lot about Big Mind-Small Mind, expansive, wide-lens consciousness and contracted, introverted consciousness. I have moments-we all do-when just being alive is a pleasure and a miracle. They feel like moments when the shutters of the mind are open so I can look out. It also feels as if those same shutters have no hooks to fix them in an open position. One small wind and bang-they slam shut.

Every single act we do has the potential of causing pain, and every single thing we do has consequences that echo way beyond what we can imagine. It doesn't mean we shouldn't act. It means we should act carefully. Everything matters [p. 41].

The prohibition of L'shon Hara is the Jewish equivalent of the Buddhist practice of Right Speech.

They were struggling and often in quite a lot of pain and concern, but still, they were all right. I thought to myself as I looked around, 'What we're all doing is we're all managing gracefully.' [p.5]

Mindfulness meditation doesn't change life. Life remains as fragile and unpredictable as ever. Meditation changes the heart's capacity to accept life as it is. It teaches the heart to be more accommodating, not by beating it into submission, but by making it clear that accommodation is a gratifying choice.

The Buddha said that there are three times that a person should consider the consequences of any action: before, during, and after. "One should reflect thus," he said. "'Is what I am about to do . . .' or 'Is what I am currently doing . . .' or 'Is what I just did . . . for my own well-being and for the benefit of all others?

My father ... used to say, 'I need my anger. It obliges me to take action.' I think my father was partly right. Anger arises, naturally, to signal disturbing situations that might require action. But actions initiated in anger perpetuate suffering. The most effective actions are those conceived in the wisdom of clarity.

Life is painful, suffering is optional.

My redeemer is always the person next to me.

Clearly the path of mitzvot is a form of meditation. The intention to act impeccably requires complete dedication and unwavering attention. I was also impressed with LUzzato's insistence that mitzvot practice is joyful.

Knowing ... that the struggle to create a different current reality is to no avail helps keep the attention present even when experience is painful ... the same wisdom that keeps the attention alert and present in painful circumstances includes the awareness ... that human beings feel about things, that we lament or yearn or grieve even when we understand that things can't be different. [p. 33]

If I want to free myself from endless cycles of struggling with temptation, I need to keep rediscovering that the pain of the struggle is greater than the pain of the desire. If I develop the habit of restraining myself, I'll enjoy the relief of feeling the desires pass, and I'll remember that desires are not the problem. Feeling pushed around by them is. I'll continue to have desires, of course, because I'm alive, but they'll be more modest in their demands.

Spirituality doesn't look like sitting down and meditating. Spirituality looks like folding the towels in a sweet way and talking kindly to the people in the family eve though you've had a rough day.

The Buhha was a monastic, but the practice of mindfulness in the context of any lifestyle is one of renunciation. Every moment of mindfulness renounces the reflexive, self-protecting response of the mind in favor of clear and balanced understanding. In the light of the wisdom that comes from balanced undertanding, attachment to having things be other than what they ar falls away.

The end of health or of vigor is sad. [p. 149]

Concentration and mindfulness are the internal ways in which the mind restores itself from being out of balance and lost in confusion to a condition of ease, clarity, and wisdom. No external action needs to happen.

Everybody manages one way or another; everyone who is alive and reading this book has managed.

We have moments of such clarity, of such appreciation of the incredible web of interconnected events that carry us from breath to breath, day to day, as long as we live-and the next moment we fret about how much we weigh. Or who we didn't send a Valentine. Or who forgot to compliment the dinner. Or whatever.

Hatred will never cease by hatred, Only love will erase hatred, This is the eternal law.

When the mind is clear, behavior is always impeccable.

Speech that compliments is, by definition, free from derision, which clouds the mind with enemies and makes it tense. Kind speech makes the mind feel safe and also glad. [p.74]

I think they paid attention to their lives and became wise. For those of us who don't arrive at wisdom naturally, meditation is one way to get there through practice.