Steve Hagen Quotes

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.

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.

[When we drop our agendas] we begin to cultivate a mind of true goodness and compassion, which comes out of a concern for the Whole. As we live out of such a mind, we become generous, with no sense of giving or of making a sacrifice. We become open, with no sense of tolerance. We become patient, with no sense of putting up with anything. We become compassionate, with no sense of separation. And we become wise, with no sense of having to straighten anyone out.

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.

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.

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

You want to not have any problems.

Mindfulness of the body is awareness of... the taste and smell of this moment.

Socrates pointed out that we carry on as though death were the greatest of all calamities-yet, for all we know, it might be the greatest of all blessings. What are we going to call good? What are we going to call bad? Good or bad is never our choice, or even the issue.

Nothing holds us back but our thoughts.

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.

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.

Whatever the world dishes up, we take it on--not on our own terms, but on the world's.