quotes to inspire us

“Bring the mind home” traditional meditation instruction

Buddha

All anxiety, fear, and suffering come from an untamed mind.

Shantideva

Thoughts, emotions, phenomena are all tamed by having tamed this mind alone.

Shantideva

Our fears will come to nothing.

Every good thing, everything constructive, 

Drops into our hands. Why? 

Because mind is also the source of all goodness.

Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche 

The lack of mindfulness exposes us to all kinds of things. It allows us to get overwhelmed by toxic forces. . . Makes us blunder into every kind of mistake, and actually fail to do what we set out to do, what we want to do.

Sogyal Rinpoche

We’re everywhere, but no one is at home.

Buddha

We are what we think.

All that we are arises with our thoughts.

With our thoughts we make the world.

Speak or act with a mind of negativity,

And trouble will follow you,

As the wheel follows the ox that draws the cart.

We are what we think.

All that we are arises with our thoughts.

With our thoughts we make the world.

Speak or act with a mind of positivity,

And happiness will follow you,

As your shadow, unshakeable.

From the Kunje Gyalpo text

Mind is the king who is responsible for everything. (or, “the all-creating king”)

Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö

The root of all things and events is your own mind.

It’s convincing when it’s unexamined. It’s ingenious in the games of deception. 

Buddha

Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own thoughts, unguarded. But, once mastered, no one can help you as much.

Sogyal Rinpoche

If you tame your mind, you will transform your perceptions and your experience. Then, even circumstances and outer appearances will begin to change and appear differently.

(attributed to) Max Planck

When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

Buddha

Mind is the root of everything.

HH Dalai Lama

Is it just for me, or for others? Is it for the benefit of the few, or the many? Is it for now, or for the future?

John Milton, Paradise Lost

The mind is its own place and in itself can make a heaven of hell or a hell of heaven.

Buddha

Mind is the creator of happiness and suffering.

Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö 

The root of all things and events, all things and events, is your own mind.

The first Law of Holes

If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. 

Pascal

All of humanity’s difficulties are cause by our inability to sit quietly in a room by ourself.

Hamlet

For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö

When unexamined mind is ingenious in the games of deception. Yet when investigated, it is without any basis or origin.

Mark Twain

I have experienced many terrible things in my life, a few of which actually happened. 

Sogyal Rinpoche

We are making friends with ourselves

Tilopa

It is not appearances that bind us, it is grasping that binds us. That’s why let go of grasping.

Padmasambhava

Do not try to get to the root of everything, go straight to the root of mind.

Once you get to the root of mind, you’ll know one thing that liberates all.

If you fail to fathom the root of mind, you can know everything but understand nothing.

Temple at Delphi

Know yourself

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

Do not let your mind be distracted, look at its very nature

Nyoshul Khenpo

Undistracted, look into the essence of mind

Longchenpa

It’s all very well to recognize your own nature,

But if you don’t meditate, if you don’t get used to it,

You’ll be like a baby left on a battlefield, carried off by your own thoughts.