Ayya Khema Quotes & Sayings

From contact comes feeling. From feeling comes reaction. This is what keeps us in the cycle of birth and death. Our reactions to our feelings are our passport to rebirth. — Ayya Khema

If the whole universe can be found in our own body and mind, this is where we need to make our inquires. We all have the answers within ourselves, we just have not got in touch with them yet. The potential of finding the truth within requires faith in ourselves. — Ayya Khema

Trying to achieve something in the spiritual world is just as foolish as trying to achieve something in the material world. There's nothing to achieve. There's only letting go. As we let go, more and more, of ego identifications, desires, and support systems, bliss will arise. — Ayya Khema

A truly happy person is someone who is joyfully independent of outer conditions. — Ayya Khema

If we do not try, we will not know. — Ayya Khema

Mindfulness is a mental activity that in due course eliminates all suffering. — Ayya Khema

The Buddha compared anger with picking up hot coals with one's bare hands and trying to throw them at the person with whom one is angry. Who gets burned first? The one who is angry of course. — Ayya Khema

It is often thought that the Buddha's doctrine teaches us that suffering will disappear if one has meditated long enough, or if one sees everything differently. It is not that at all. Suffering isn't going to go away; the one who suffers is going to go away. — Ayya Khema

The more we abandon ill-will and hatred, the easier it will be to meditate. — Ayya Khema

If we divide into two camps
even into violent and the nonviolent
and stand in one camp while attacking the other, the world will never have peace. We will always blame and condemn those we feel are responsible for wars and social injustice, without recognizing the degree of violence within ourselves. We must work on ourselves and also with those we condemn if we want to have a real impact. — Ayya Khema

To look for total satisfaction in oneself is a futile endeavor. Since everything changes from moment to moment, where can self and where can satisfaction be found? Everybody is unhappy simply because of unfilled desire. Everybody is looking for something that isn't available. — Ayya Khema

Whatever we attempt is a reflection of our inner thirst, which we hope to quench in all these external ways. What we are looking for lies within us, and if we gave out time and energy to an interior search, we would come across it much faster, since that is the only place where it is to be found. — Ayya Khema

We could become quite satisfied with ourselves because we are sitting in meditation and are endeavoring to practice the spiritual path. Such satisfaction with ourselves is not the same as contentment. Contentment is necessary, self-satisfaction is detrimental. To be content has to include knowing we are in the right place at the right time to facilitate our own growth. But to be self-satisfied means that we no longer realize the need for growth. All these aspects are important parts of our commitment and makes us into one whole being with a one-pointed direction. — Ayya Khema

"Wholeheartedly" means that we give our time, love, and energy unstintingly. — Ayya Khema

The heart is always the place to go. Go home into your heart, where there is warmth, appreciation, gratitude and contentment — Ayya Khema

As long as we have practiced neither concentration nor mindfulness, the ego takes itself for granted and remains its usual normal size, as big as the people around one will allow. — Ayya Khema

Unless we practice
loving feelings toward
everyone we meet, day in,
day out, we're missing out
on the most joyous part of
life. If we can actually open
our hearts, there's no
difficulty in being happy. — Ayya Khema

Eventually we will find (mostly in retrospect, of course) that we can be very grateful to those people who have made life most difficult for us. — Ayya Khema

If we want to be loved, we are looking for a support system. If we want to love, we are looking for spiritual growth. — Ayya Khema

Half the spiritual life consists of remembering what we are up against and where we are going. — Ayya Khema