71 Quotes by Stephen Batchelor

Yet Gotama’s Dhamma is more than just a series of axioms. It is to be lived rather than simply adopted and believed in. It entails that one embrace this world in all its contingency and specificity, with all its ambiguity and flaws.

We cannot choose whether to engage with the world, only how to.

We perceive the world in a particular way and confidently expect it to conform to its appearance. But we fail to recognize that certain aspects of the ‘reality’ that appear to us are nothing but figments of our own imagination. In this confusion a conflict ensues between the world as it is and the world as we believe it to be. And the more we insist on our infallibility, the more frustrated we become as the actual world again and again stubbornly refuses to live up to our expectations.

In pride we consciously elevate our own standing and concerns and look down upon others as essentially inferior.

Awakening is the purpose that enfolds all purposes.

The first step in this process of mindfulness is radical self-acceptance .

Buddhism, I think, is probably facing the single most difficult transition from one historical epoch to another, which is really the transition to modernity.

The greatest threat to compassion is the temptation to succumb to fantasies of moral superiority.

In taking life for granted, we fail to notice it.