Ken McLeod quotes
Some find they can practice effectively by bringing attention to the arising of like, dislike and indifference in their meditation practice and daily life. Others are able to use the power of loving kindness, compassion, equanimity, or devotion to change the way they experience things. And still others develop or naturally have enough capacity in awareness that they experience attraction as delight, aversion as clarity, and indifference as non-thought.
Ken McLeod
If you don't clearly understand what you are looking for in a teacher or in internal work, you will inevitably accept someone else's agenda as your own. While you may start internal transformative work on the suggestion or advice of another person, at some point your practice has to become a response to your own questions about life and being.
Ken McLeod
As compassion deepens, we find ourselves developing a nobility of the heart. Increasingly, and often to our surprise, we respond to difficult situations with calmness, clarity and directness. A quiet fearlessness or confidence is present as we no longer fear that we will compromise our own integrity. We find, too, a joy, a joy which arises from the knowledge that our every act is meaningful and helpful to the world.
Ken McLeod
By just taking a breath you're moving into attention a little bit and so you get much less caught up in reactivity. A practical application of this in your life is, never say anything before you've taken one breath. It's a very simple practice--changes the dynamics of conversation with other people completely.
Ken McLeod
The vast array of methods and techniques which comprise Buddhism, particularly the Tibetan tradition, are all to help us come to know simply what we are, buddha, awake and aware. Time and time again, we are told that we are buddha, that the buddha qualities are present now, but that we just don't know it. The problem, for many of us, is that this knowing is not a form of knowing that we are used to. We need tools and methods to dismantle the emotional blocks, the habitual patterns, the worries, concerns, expectations, and hopes that keep us from trusting and knowing what we are.
Ken McLeod
As you become more awake you actually find yourself with less and less choice about what you do in any given situation. And you have less choice because you see more clearly. This is a very important point. Clarity doesn't create more options. It eliminates options because you see that they aren't appropriate or they don't work.
Ken McLeod