Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With The Heart Of A Buddha Quotes
"I was continually harassed by an inner judge who was merciless, relentless, nit-picking, driving, often invisible but always on the job."
"My guiding assumption was 'Something is fundamentally wrong with me,' and I struggled to control and fix what felt like a basically flawed self."
"Feeling not okay went hand in hand with deep loneliness."
"As we drove down from the mountains that Sunday night, my heart was lighter but still aching. I longed to be kinder to myself."
"They gave me a way of seeing clearly what I was experiencing and showed me how to relate to my life with compassion."
"For so many of us, feelings of deficiency are right around the corner. It doesn’t take much—just hearing of someone else’s accomplishments, being criticized, getting into an argument, making a mistake at work—to make us feel that we are not okay."
"Feeling that something is wrong with me is the invisible and toxic gas I am always breathing."
"Radical Acceptance reverses our habit of living at war with experiences that are unfamiliar, frightening or intense."
"The only way to live is by accepting each minute as an unrepeatable miracle."
"Radical Acceptance enables us to return to the root or origin of who we are, to the source of our being."
"The unfaced and unfelt parts of our psyche are the source of all neurosis and suffering."
"No matter how happy we may be, life inevitably delivers up a crisis—divorce, death of a loved one, a critical illness."
"Determined to discover how human beings could find happiness and freedom in the face of such suffering, he left the luxurious palaces."
"By pausing, he had relaxed into a natural wakefulness and inner freedom."
"Seeking to avoid the pain and control our experience, we pull away from the intensity of our feelings, often ignoring or denying our genuine physical and emotional needs."
"The truth about our childhood is stored up in our body, and although we can repress it, we can never alter it."
"Pain is the messenger we try to kill, not something we allow and embrace."
"The practice of Radical Acceptance begins with our own pause under the bodhi tree."
"Like Laura, we primarily know how to avoid it. But stopping can be terrifying—to sit under the bodhi tree and face the arrows of Mara takes courage and resolve."
"Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love."
"When we abandon our body for our fear-driven stories about pain, we trap the pain in our body."
"The very place is the Lotus Land, this very body, the Buddha."
"Life was just happening, a magical display of appearances."
"As we let life live through us, we experience the boundless openness of our true nature."
"The universe is shot through in all parts by a single sort of love."
"The more times we traverse this path—feeling the loneliness or craving, and inhabiting its immensity—the more the longing for love becomes a gateway into love itself."
"We suffer when our experience of desire or craving defines and confines our experience of who we are."
"The root of all our fear is our basic craving for existence and aversion to deterioration and death."
"Our true power of Buddha's story, the power that has kept it alive for all these centuries, rests in the fact that it demonstrates what is possible for each of us."
"Taking refuge in the truth of his awakening can inspire us on our own path toward fearlessness."
"By taking refuge we learn to trust the unfolding of our lives."
"To pay attention means we care, which means we really love."
"By paying attention we let ourselves be touched by life, and our hearts naturally become more open and engaged."
"Our suffering, rather than being an obstacle, becomes the path to inner freedom."
"Feeling loved and loving matters to us beyond all else."
"Our willingness to face our fear frees us from trance and bestows on us the blessings of awareness."
"We can learn to see our shared vulnerability and realize our belonging with all beings."
"Our capacity to look away from the realness and the suffering of others has horrendous consequences."
"The more we awaken from the grip of fear, the more radiant and free becomes our heart."
"When we fully inhabit our nature of timeless, radiant awareness, we love freely and are whole."
"Kindness is the desire to help that arises when we remember that we are connected with every living being we meet."
"Softening our hearts together opened up our circle of compassion—we were real and mattered to each other."
"Sometimes the very people we are closest to become unreal to us."
"Thoreau writes, 'Is there a greater miracle than to see through another’s eyes, even for an instant?'"
"If we ask ourselves when meeting anyone—'How can I be more kind?'—inevitably we will recognize that every being needs to be listened to, loved and understood."
"The more fully we offer our attention, the more deeply we realize that what matters most in life is being kind."
"When the animals come to us, asking for our help, will we know what they are saying?"
"Every thought we have, every action we take has an impact for good or for ill."
"We can do no great things—only small things with great love."
"I am larger and better than I thought. I did not think I held so much goodness."
"To radically accept life depends upon clearly seeing the full truth of it."
"When we expose our own hurt or fear, we actually give others permission to be more authentic."
"What makes us willing is that the greater hurt, the real suffering, is in staying armored and isolated."
"It takes courage to be vulnerable, but the reward is sweet: We awaken compassion and genuine intimacy in our relationships."
"Loving acceptance combined with forthright honesty are key components in healing and transformation."
"Witnessing the power of Radical Acceptance always amazes me."
"Because they realize they are human, imperfect, and still lovable, they can breathe deeply and start fresh."
"Friendliness is one of the main translations of the Pali word metta or lovingkindness."
"As we bring our vulnerability, insight, and heart into conscious relationship, we realize we are all waking up together."
"Pain does not belong to one individual. Not taking pain personally is essential to Radical Acceptance."
"The Buddha described wise speech as speaking only what is true and what is helpful."
"Radical Acceptance is the art of engaging fully in this world while also resting in the formless awareness."
"Our true and original nature is described in Mahayana Buddhism as prajnaparamita, the heart of perfect wisdom."
"Recognizing our natural awareness takes less and less effort as we practice relaxing our grip on self-identities."
"The natural arising of emotions is a profound opportunity to experience how the natural expression of awareness is love."
"The loving awareness we cherish is not a distant fragrance; it is already here, within us."
"Remembering what we love guides us back to sacred presence."
"By relaxing our stories of 'who we are,' we see that nothing is missing, nothing is outside this ocean of pearling currents."