Steve Hagen Quotes & Sayings
Enjoy the top 100 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Steve Hagen.
Famous Quotes By Steve Hagen
To forget the self is to remember that we don't exist alone, but in relation to other people, to other creatures, to the planet, and to the universe. — Steve Hagen
If you point out the moon to a cat, she probably won't look at the sky; she'll come up and sniff your finger. — Steve Hagen
Ignorance is not the inability to see, but the act of ignoring what is really going on in favour of what we imagine. — Steve Hagen
Truth is not ... something to believe or disbelieve. The things we believe are always less than Truth[.] — Steve Hagen
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. — Steve Hagen
The issues of what a self is, how long it will last, what will happen when our bodies decay and consciousness flickers off, are all based not on what we actually see but on what we imagine. — Steve Hagen
Why would anyone want to awaken to the Reality that they're not even here in the first place? — Steve Hagen
Give your mind a lot of space and it quiets down; try to control, quiet, or restrict it, and it goes wild. — Steve Hagen
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? — Steve Hagen
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. — Steve Hagen
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. — Steve Hagen
The biggest mistake we make in confusing a concept with Reality is in ... the separation of self and other. — Steve Hagen
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. — Steve Hagen
[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. — Steve Hagen
There can be no moral authority to tell you what to do, for no such authority can lie outside your own will. — Steve Hagen
When we latch on to an identity, it is easy to take offense. But we offend ourselves. We lock ourselves into very rigid ways of seeing and thinking and feeling and reacting. It doesn't have to be this way. The fact is, I'm not anything in particular. Nor are you. Nor is anyone. — Steve Hagen
[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. — Steve Hagen
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. — Steve Hagen
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. — Steve Hagen
All we ever find is the arising and ceasing of the world as it has come to be now. When you snap your fingers, it's already gone. All that persists is thus. Thus is not an object of mind but Mind Itself. — Steve Hagen
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. — Steve Hagen
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. — Steve Hagen
Your breath is a unique object to meditation because it resides right at the boundary between inside and outside, between you and the outside world. — Steve Hagen
We have all sorts of stories about heaven and hell, about oblivion and nothingness, about 'coming back,' and so on. But they are all stories. — Steve Hagen
[E]ven in getting the wonderful things we long for, we tend to live in want of something more[.] — Steve Hagen
We cannot. . .begin any real inquiry into Truth, with any assumption or belief whatsoever. We must be willing to see things as they are, rather than as we hope, wish, or expect them to be. — Steve Hagen
We can easily see what actions and speech will lead us and others into hatred, confusion, difficulty, and suffering. And we can see what words and actions will not. ... Is our intention to hoodwink, mislead, inflate, or deceive others ... ? — Steve Hagen
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. — Steve Hagen
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. — Steve Hagen
Belief may serve as a useful stopgap measure in the absence of actual experience, but once you see ... [it] becomes unnecessary. — Steve Hagen
The only way we can be free in each moment is to become what each moment is. — Steve Hagen
You want to not have any problems. — Steve Hagen
[W]hat purpose does it serve to deny actual experience in order to run with an idea instead? — Steve Hagen
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. — Steve Hagen
Consciousness divides Reality. It conceptualises it, packages it, and explains it to itself. Then in our ignorance, we think it's taking readings on things 'out there. — Steve Hagen
We have to realize what we are. The range of what is human is vast, ranging from the saintly to the monstrous. When we speak of other human beings as if they somehow do not belong to our species, we ignore the reality of our very nature. — Steve Hagen
Usually we hold a frozen view of ourselves as well as of the world 'out there.' ... We identify with groups, behaviours, habits, and beliefs. — Steve Hagen
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. — Steve Hagen
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. — Steve Hagen
[I]mpermanence [is] the very thing that makes [life] vibrant, wonderful, and alive. — Steve Hagen
See confusion as confusion. Acknowledge suffering as suffering. Feel pain and sorrow and divisiveness. Experience anger or fear or shock for what they are. But you don't have to think of them as evil - as intrinsically bad, as needing to be destroyed or driven from our midst. On the contrary, they need to be absorbed, healed, made whole. (15) — Steve Hagen
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. — Steve Hagen
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. — Steve Hagen
True freedom doesn't lie in the maximization of choice, but, ironically, is most easily found in a life where there is little choice. — Steve Hagen
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. — Steve Hagen
As we live out of such a mind, we become generous, 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. — Steve Hagen
[L]iberation [doesn't occur] in wearing robes or performing ritual acts. — Steve Hagen
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. — Steve Hagen
A buddha recognizes that anything put into speech is never completely reliable. — Steve Hagen
[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. — Steve Hagen
If it's Truth we're after, we'll find that we cannot start with any assumptions or concepts whatsoever. Instead, we must approach the world with bare, naked attention, seeing it without any mental bias - without concepts, beliefs, preconceptions, presumptions, or expectations. (6) — Steve Hagen
When we talk about others, we should be very careful to observe our motive - especially if we're talking about a person who isn't present. — Steve Hagen
This will never come again — Steve Hagen
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. — Steve Hagen
We move through the world in a narrow groove, preoccupied with the petty things we see and hear, brooding over our prejudices, passing by the joys of life without even knowing that we have missed anything. Never for a moment do we taste the heady wine of freedom. We are as truly imprisoned as if we lay at the bottom of a dungeon, heaped with chains. — Steve Hagen
[W]ith the sense of self gone, ... actions naturally become uncalculated and free. — Steve Hagen
We commonly see things 'out there' and go after them. Our mind is thus characterised by division and separation. — Steve Hagen
[W]e're caught by our concepts ... [C]oncepts are not Reality. — Steve Hagen
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. — Steve Hagen
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. — Steve Hagen
Every atom, every minuscule part of the universe is nothing other than movement and change. — Steve Hagen
Good and bad aren't absolutes. They are beliefs, judgements, ideas based on limited knowledge as well as on the inclinations of our minds. — Steve Hagen
Neatly packaging everything gives us the illusion we ... know something. — Steve Hagen
If your idea of good opposes something else, you can be sure that [it] is not absolute or certain. — Steve Hagen
Belief is at best an educated, informed conjecture about Reality. — Steve Hagen
After ... all the philosophy and science that we've laboured on for centuries, it's becoming very hard to find a story we can buy. — Steve Hagen
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. — Steve Hagen
[T]houghts will arise. Don't be bothered by them. Don't think they're bad or that you shouldn't be having them. ... If you leave them alone, they'll depart of their own accord. This is how to 'cease all movements of the conscious mind.' You cannot do it by the direct application of your will. — Steve Hagen
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. — Steve Hagen
[B]ecause of change, what we love continues to appear, and what we hate never lasts forever. — Steve Hagen
[W]hen we come up with any concept at all, we simultaneously create one or more opposite concepts. — Steve Hagen
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. — Steve Hagen
There's no rule in the end, but only the situation and the inclination of your mind — Steve Hagen
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. — Steve Hagen
Good' crystallised ... breeds arrogance and hostility — Steve Hagen
We imagine that things come into existence, endure for a while, and then pass out of existence — Steve Hagen
[W]e ignore the Whole, we're taken in by the parts. We're seduced by objects of our consciousness — Steve Hagen
[H]ow can something cease to exist that has no solid existence in the first place? — Steve Hagen
we face the woeful prospect that we're intelligent creatures living in a meaningless world. — Steve Hagen
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. — Steve Hagen
The Buddha encouraged people to "know for yourselves that certain things are unwholesome and wrong. And when you do, then give them up. And when you know for yourselves that certain things are wholesome and good, then accept them and follow them."
The message is always to examine and see for yourself. When you see for yourself what is true-and that's really the only way that you can genuinely know anything-then embrace it. Until then, just suspend judgment and criticism. — Steve Hagen
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. — Steve Hagen
[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. — Steve Hagen
Normally, a view of the world is nothing more than a set of beliefs, a way to freeze the world in our minds. But this can never match Reality, simply because the world isn't frozen. Nevertheless we carry on as though the way we've frozen it in our minds is the way it actually is. — Steve Hagen
The moment we try to capture and encapsulate Truth, we have paradox, confusion, contention [and] doubt[.] — Steve Hagen
Whatever the world dishes up, we take it on
not on our own terms, but on the world's. — Steve Hagen
How can a hard and fast view of a world that is never hard and fast possibly be accurate? — Steve Hagen
[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; — Steve Hagen
[T]here is really nothing 'out there' to get because, already, within this moment, everything is whole and complete. — Steve Hagen