Stephen Levine Quotes & Sayings

Healing comes when we meet our wounded places with compassion. — Stephen Levine

Why do so many of us not give ourselves permission to be alive until we are absolutely assured that we will die? ... If we are not in [this present millisecond of life and conscious experience], we are not alive; we are merely thinking our lives. Yet we have seen so many die, looking back over their shoulders at their lives, shaking their heads and muttering in bewilderment, "What was that all about?" — Stephen Levine

Much thought has at its root a dissatisfaction with what is. Wanting is the urge for the next moment to contain what this moment does not. When there is wanting in the mind, that moment feels incomplete. Wanting is seeing elsewhere. Completeness is being right here. — Stephen Levine

The secret of chanting is in the listening, not the voicing, and a circuit is completed between mind and heart that opens intuition and gently increases the volume of the still small voice within. — Stephen Levine

[D]on't cling to your self-righteous suffering, let it go ... Nothing is too good to be true, let yourself be forgiven. To the degree you insist that you must suffer, you insist on the suffering of others as well. (90) — Stephen Levine

As we begin to see where we have been absent from life, increasing possibilities audition for our approval. — Stephen Levine

If you want the other person more than anything else in the world, you're in major trouble and the relationship is a wobbly pivot. It's different if the thing you want most in the world is truth, and your partner is the person you want most in the world. — Stephen Levine

Having written extensively about the practice of mindfulness in A Gradual Awakening I suggest that you refine your practice with this book as well as Jack Kornfield's excellent A Path with Heart. We — Stephen Levine

To know your life is to know intimately what you are feeling. Or to put it another way: to be aware of what state of mind predominates in consciousness. The noting of mental states encourages a deeper recognition of what is happening while it is happening. It allows us to be more fully alive in the present rather than living our life as an afterthought. It enables us to watch with mercy, if not humor, the uninvited swirl of "mixed emotions" not as something in need of judgment but as a work in progress. — Stephen Levine

When we see all women as the divine mother and all men as the divine father, everyone you meet is sacred. — Stephen Levine

That which is impermanent attracts compassion. That which is not provides wisdom. (116) — Stephen Levine

Non-attachment is not the elimination of desire. It is the spaciousness to allow any quality of mind, any thought or feeling, to arise without closing around it, without eliminating the pure witness of being. It is an active receptivity to life. — Stephen Levine

Safety is the most unsafe spiritual path you can take. Safety keeps you numb and dead. People are caught by surprise when it is time to die. They have allowed themselves to live so little. — Stephen Levine

There is in all our strivings a profound homesickness for God. When we touch another we touch God. When we look at a flower, its radiance, its fragrance, its stillness is another moment's experience of something deeper within. When we hold a baby, when we hear extraordinary music, when we look into the eyes of a great saint, what draws us is that deep homesickness for our true nature, for the peace and healing that is our birthright. This homesickness for God directs us toward the healing we took birth for. — Stephen Levine

Oxygen plays a pivotal role in the proper functioning of the immune system. We can look at oxygen deficiency as the single greatest cause of all diseases. — Stephen Levine

God is not someone or something separate but is the suchness in each moment, the underlying reality. — Stephen Levine

Once we can see the major shifts from liking to disliking, from opened to close, we will be able to acknowledge them before they gain momentum. — Stephen Levine

To heal is to touch with love that which was previously touched by fear. — Stephen Levine

Until we find out who was born this time around, it seems irrelevant to seek earlier identities. I have heard many people speak of who they believe they were in previous incarnations, but they seem to have very little idea of who they are in this one ... Let's take one life at a time. Perhaps the best way to do that is to live as though there were no afterlife or reincarnation. To live as though this moment was all that was allotted. (132) — Stephen Levine

An interesting way to practice dying is by opening to illness. Each time you get a cold or the flu use it as an opportunity to soften around the unpleasant and investigate how resistance turns pain into suffering, the unpleasant into the unbearable. Notice how discomfort attracts grief. Watch the shadows gather in the aching body. Hear them mutter in complaint and self-pity. — Stephen Levine

I have seen many die, surrounded by loved ones, and their last words were 'I love you.' There were some who could no longer speak yet with their eyes and soft smile left behind that same healing message. I have been in rooms where those who were dying made it feel like sacred ground. (26) — Stephen Levine

The mind is a useful tool but not a very good friend. — Stephen Levine

The saddest part about being human is not paying attention. Presence is the gift of life. — Stephen Levine

Healing comes not from being loving but from being itself. It is not a case of being clear but of clear being. This healing is not about anything else but being itself. Nothing separate, no edges, nothing to limit healing. Entering, in moments, the realm of pure being, the gateless gate swings open- beyond life and death, our original face shines back at us. — Stephen Levine

Quoting son, Noah Levine: Once you see what the heart really needs, it doesn't matter if you're going to live or die, the work is always the same. (25) — Stephen Levine

[D]etachment means letting go and nonattachment means simply letting be. (95) — Stephen Levine

We've all been should upon enough. — Stephen Levine

Loss is the absence of something we were once attached to. Grief is the rope burns left behind, when that which is held is pulled beyond our grasp. — Stephen Levine

As Nisargadatta said, 'The mind creates the abyss and the heart crosses it." Often — Stephen Levine

Letting go of our suffering is the hardest work we will ever do. It is also the most fruitful. To heal means to meet ourselves in a new way
in the newness of each moment where all is possible and nothing is limited to the old. — Stephen Levine

The mind is in a constant state of flux. No thought, no feeling, no sensation lasts for more than an instant before it is transformed into the next state, next thought, the next sensation. Note those moments ... As they pass through, note such states as confidence, bewilderment, effort, trust, distrust, pleasure, discomfort, boredom, devotion, inquiry, pride, anger, desire, etc. — Stephen Levine

If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make who would you call and what would you say?
And why are you waiting? — Stephen Levine

Our life is composed of events and states of mind. How ewe appraise our life from our deathbed will be predicated not only on what came to us in life but how we lived with it. It will not be simply illness or health, riches or poverty, good luck or bad, which ultimately define whether we believe we have had a good life or not, but the quality of our relationship to these situations: the attitudes of our states of mind. (34) — Stephen Levine

If sequestered pain made a sound, the atmosphere would be humming all the time. — Stephen Levine

When the heart acknowledges how much pain there is in the mind, it turns like a mother toward a frightened child. — Stephen Levine

There is nothing to do but be. — Stephen Levine

Hell is not fire and brimstone, not a place where you are punished for lying or cheating or stealing. Hell is wanting to be something and somewhere different from where you are. — Stephen Levine

Our suffering is caused by holding on to how things might have been, should have been, could have been. — Stephen Levine

You can call it wisdom, or sanity, or health, or enlightenment. I use the word God as a short-cut. I am comfortable with the word God because I don't have the foggiest idea of what it means. — Stephen Levine

We are so numb we don't even know what a direct experience is. We have an experience, then we think about it and we think the thinking about it is the experience. — Stephen Levine

Your distance from your partner is the distance from your heart. The things that make relationships difficult are some of the most precious aspects to us. — Stephen Levine

In all serious disease states we find a concomitant low oxygen state ... Low oxygen in the body tissues is a sure indicator for disease ... Hypoxia, or lack of oxygen in the tissues, is the fundamental cause for all degenerative disease. Oxygen is the source of life to all cells. — Stephen Levine

It is not for the concept, but for the experience, that we use the term the Beloved. The experience of this enormity we falteringly label divine is unconditioned love. Absolute openness, unbounded mercy and compassion. We use this concept, not to name the unnameable vastness of being
our greatest joy
but to acknowledge and claim as our birthright the wonders and healings within. — Stephen Levine

Clearly, all fear has an element of resistance and a leaning away from the moment. Its dynamic is not unlike that of strong desire except that fear leans backward into the last safe moment while desire leans forward toward the next possibility of satisfaction. Each lacks presence. (29) — Stephen Levine

When you can accept discomfort, doing so allows a balance of mind. That surrender, that letting go of wanting anything to be other than it is right in the moment, is what frees us from hell. When we see resistance in the mind, stiffness in the mind, boredom, restlessness ... that is the meditation. Often, we think, "I can't meditate, I'm restless," "I can't meditate, I'm bored," "I can't meditate, there's a fly on my nose." That is the meditation. Meditation isn't to disappear into the light. Meditation is to see all of what we are. — Stephen Levine

Open yourself to discomfort. Meet it with mercy, not fear. Recognize that when our pain most calls for our embrace, we are often the least present. Soften, enter, and explore, and continue softening to make room for your life. — Stephen Levine

Practice daily forgiveness and gratitude meditations in relationship to both pleasant and unpleasant memories. Listen to your life song among the insights that hum through the mind. — Stephen Levine

Meditation allows us to directly participate in our lives instead of living life as an afterthought. — Stephen Levine

Naming of things as they are, without embellishment, make approachable those afflictive emotions and heavy states that obscure the heart. We know that we can't let go of anything we don't accept, the noting brings us into the presence of that which often distracts us from the present. It allows the healing in. And as we observe the appearance of things, we more easily acknowledge their subsequent disappearance, and some come to an appreciation of impermanence. — Stephen Levine

Acting from the appropriateness of the heart, we are freed from the neediness of the mind. — Stephen Levine

Always try to see yourself through God's eyes. — Stephen Levine

Death is perfectly safe. (55) — Stephen Levine

Love is not what we become but who we already are — Stephen Levine

Often when we hear people speak about meditation, we hear about wisdom, we hear about knowledge. But what, actually, is the effect, what's the use, of wisdom or knowledge? Understanding. When you understand mind, you're not at its mercy. When you don't understand, you're lost in the midst of it. — Stephen Levine

There is a delicate balance that we need to honor as we try to find meaning in any event or state of mind: Many people confuse finding meaning with finding a reason, putting our finger on something or someone for blame. — Stephen Levine

The "third eye" ... "our sacred Cyclops" ... our "good" eye, the only one that can see beyond our conditioned ways of seeing. It is, of course, a knowing eye, not a seeing one. It is the eye through which we look within to experience the universe unfolding. It is the single eye that concentrates duality into the One: the eye of insight, the locus of the point of remembrance on the ascent to death, as well as the point of forgetfulness on the descent into birth. — Stephen Levine

The process of growth is, it seems, the art of falling down. Growth is measured by the gentleness and awareness with which we once again pick ourselves up, the lightness with which we dust ourselves off, the openness with which we continue and take the next unknown step, beyond our edge, beyond our holding, into the remarkable mystery of being. — Stephen Levine

The body takes about seven years to replace all its cells. As we age original factory parts get harder to come by. We accept seconds and rebuilds. Some are even transplanted with recycled parts. We get less miles to the gallon, and eventually, after several towings, we must abandon the body by the side of the road. From there we must go the rest of the way alone with just our heart for guidance. — Stephen Levine

The only service you can do for anyone is to remind them of their true nature. — Stephen Levine

Approach illness as an experiment in staying present, in opening your heart in hell. Discuss how we fear our hidden pain even more than death, and how noting and mindfulness brings that pain to the surface where it can be healed. — Stephen Levine

I have seem even those who have long since abjured God die in grace ... Atheists don't use their drying to bargain for a better seat at the table; indeed they may not even believe supper is being served. They are not storing up 'merit.'; They just smile because their heart is ripe. They are kind for no particular reason; they just love. — Stephen Levine

It doesn't matter how long you forget, only how soon you remember! — Stephen Levine

For all of us there is an approach to the seemingly unapproachable. This is the life-affirming work of learning to stay present even under difficult circumstances, to embrace mental, physical, and spiritual pain using techniques suitable for each particular level of discomfort. — Stephen Levine

If there is a single definition of healing it is to enter with mercy and awareness those pains, mental and physical, from which we have withdrawn in judgment and dismay. (48) — Stephen Levine

Understanding is the ultimate seduction of the mind. Go to the truth beyond the mind. — Stephen Levine

remember that what will die in a year's time is not our essential being but our ability to interact physically with those we love and cherish. You — Stephen Levine

Letting the last breath come.
Letting the last breath go.
Dissolving, dissolving into vast space,
the light body released from its heavier form.
A sense of connectedness with all that is,
all sense of separation dissolved
in the vastness of being.
Each breath melting into space
as though it were the last. — Stephen Levine

We see not just that which is uninjured, but that within us which is uninjurable. — Stephen Levine

I have never lived a life so much larger than death. (93) — Stephen Levine

In Chinese, the word for heart and mind is the same
Hsin. For when the heart is open and the mind is clear they are of one substance, of one essence. — Stephen Levine

Healing is bringing mercy and Awareness into that which we have held in judgment and fear. — Stephen Levine

Wanting things to be otherwise is the very essence of suffering. We almost never directly experience what pain is because our reaction to it is so immediate that most of what we call pain is actually our experience of resistance to that phenomenon. And the resistance is usually a good deal more painful than the original sensation. — Stephen Levine

When your fear touches someone's pain, it becomes pity, when your love touches someone's pain, it become compassion. — Stephen Levine

There is nothing noble about suffering except the love and forgiveness with which we meet it. Many believe that if they are suffering they are closer to God, but I have met very few who could keep their heart open to their suffering enough for that to be true. (124) — Stephen Levine

Nothing is more natural than grief, no emotion more common to our daily experience. It's an innate response to loss in a world where everything is impermanent. — Stephen Levine

Buddha left a road map, Jesus left a road map, Krishna left a road map, Rand McNally left a road map. But you still have to travel the road yourself — Stephen Levine

Sometimes pain and illness are not meant to be removed. You can't second-guess God. Rather than praying for it to go away, it's often wiser to pray that you learn as much from it as you possibly can. — Stephen Levine

Buddha nature, is like the sun which is always shining, always present, though often obscured. We are blocked from our natural light by the clouds of thought and longing and fear; the overcast of the conditioned mind; the hurricane of I am. — Stephen Levine

When we turn to our innate wisdom for the harmony of mind and gut, we heal the entrance to the heart as it seeks to beat in rhythm with the world. — Stephen Levine

[C]oncepts of dying in to a heaven or hell seem a good deal more political than spiritual. (124) — Stephen Levine

Go to the truth beyond the mind. Love is the bridge. — Stephen Levine

Death is just a change in lifestyles. — Stephen Levine

Whatever prepares you for death enhances life. — Stephen Levine

Note which states of mind accompany each moment of like and disliking. When we recall the statement, "Physician, heal thyself," this is where the healing begins. It is particularly important to notice that this constant liking and disliking that leaves us exhausted at the end of the day. It is from this mechanical response / reaction that our actions and reactions arises. — Stephen Levine

Our work is to keep our hearts open in hell. — Stephen Levine

Meditation is for many a foreign concept, somehow distant and foreboding, seemingly impossible to participate in. But another word for meditation is simply awareness. Meditation is awareness. — Stephen Levine

Aging teaches us to follow our life force inward. It is an object lesson in how awareness is gradually drawn towards the center ... — Stephen Levine

The basis of the practice is to directly participate in each moment as it occurs with as much awareness and understanding as possible. — Stephen Levine

Grief can have a quality of profound healing because we are forced to a depth of feeling that is usually below the threshold of awareness. — Stephen Levine

Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me. There is nothing to do but be. — Stephen Levine

Gratitude is the state of mind of thankfulness. As it is cultivated, we experience an increase in our "sympathetic joy," our happiness at another's happiness. Just as in the cultivation of compassion, we may feel the pain of others, so we may begin to feel their joy as well. And it doesn't stop there. — Stephen Levine

Forgiveness is mental floss! Build the capacity to forgive slowly - start with little unkind acts, otherwise you'll sabotage yourself. When we forgive, we forgive the actor, not the action. — Stephen Levine

Our addiction to always being right is a great block to the truth.
It keeps us from the kind of openness that comes from confidence in our
natural wisdom. — Stephen Levine

How soon will we accept this opportunity to be fully alive before we die? (88) — Stephen Levine

[T]hose who insist they've got their 'shit together' are usually standing in it at the time. (16) — Stephen Levine

If you can find the God inside yourself, you can find the God inside everybody. — Stephen Levine

Pouring mercy into the darkness, Miao Shan becoming the bodhisattva Kuan Yin. She liberated hell, singing: Old stories, legends of creation, won't keep Hades from becoming paradise. Rumi said for the person who loves the truth "Their water is fire." He made spring out of winter. He learned from his mistakes. There were moments when numb from thinking we forget we pass through hell on our way to heaven. And if that heavenly glow does not distract us too much, dehypnotized by grace, we continue past heaven into the boundless enormity which dwarfs it. — Stephen Levine

What is it like after you die? Just like it was before you were born. — Stephen Levine

It is trust in our vast 'don't know' that allows room for the truth, that allows the next intuition to float to the surface. — Stephen Levine

Pity arises from meeting pain with fear. Compassion comes when you meet it with love. — Stephen Levine