17 Quotes by Shinzen Young

On the one hand, the Buddha put a lot of emphasis on pursuing “The Noble Quest.” Which is the right point of view: Pursuing The Noble Quest or Calling Off the Search? Both, not neither!

…you can actually taste the sources of unhappiness breaking up….The taste of purification can’t be put into words, but its acquisition marks the transition to a mature spiritual palate…There is a taste that comes about, when a person experiences pleasure or pain with equanimity. It doesn’t matter if…emotions or physical pain exist. Every moment of the future will become marginally less filled with suffering and more fulfilling….

Ultimately, meditation can allow us to have happiness independent of conditions and that is one heck of an awesome claim.

The ultimate expression of meditation comes when we can feel all the pains of the world, experience them with mindfulness and equanimity so they dissolve into energy, and then recolor that energy and radiate it out as unconditional love, moment by moment, through every pore of our being.

Compassion is to share the pain without sharing the suffering.

As long as something wants to arise, let it. As long as something wants to last, let it. As soon as something wants to pass, let it.

If you can’t be disciplined, be clever.

Today’s enlightenment is tomorrows mistake.

It’s fine to sometimes use these archetypes as a conduit to get information from the depths, but I recommend that you mostly use them as a conduit to bring clarity and equanimity to the depths. Become fascinated with how they move, and less tripped out with what they mean.