freedom

Free men and women... can think across time, viewing their own lives, inclusive of past, present, and future, as architectural wholes, static in mental space. They can therefore see, as others cannot, the cracks and buttresses of repeated action, the points of stress, the established framework. They are not perfect; but they are less imperfect than we by a full dimension of being.

Death is a stripping away of all that is not you. The secret of life is to "die before you die" — and find that there is no death.

Love, joy, and peace cannot flourish until you have freed yourself from mind dominance.

Pleasure is always derived from something outside you, whereas joy arises from within.

Pain is inevitable as long as you are identified with your mind.

A teacher of fear can’t bring peace on Earth. We have been trying to do it that way for thousands of years. The person who turns inner violence around, the person who finds peace inside and lives it, is the one who teaches what true peace is. We are waiting for just one teacher.

You’re the one.

So there's only transcendence in the moment. Nobody can be transcended forever. That's why I say, "Who cares if you're enlightened forever?"

I've heard people say that they cling to their painful thoughts because they're afraid that without them they wouldn't be activists for peace. “If I feel peaceful,” they say, “why would I bother taking action at all?”
 
My answer is “Because that's what love does.”  To think that we need sadness or outrage to motivate us to do what's right is insane. As if the clearer and happier you get, the less kind you become. As if when someone finds freedom, she just sits around all day wiith drool running down her chin.

My experience is the opposite.

Love is action.

Would you rather be right or free?

The basics teachings of Buddha are about understanding what we are, who we are, why we are. When we begin to realize what we are, who we are, why we are, then we begin to realize what we are not, who we are not, why we are not. We begin to realize that we don’t have basic, substantial, solid, fundamental ground that we can exert anymore. We begin to realize that our ideas of security and our concept of freedom have been purely phantom experiences.