121 Quotes by Stephen Levine

Non-attachment is not the elimination of desire. It is the spaciousness to allow any quality of mind, any thought or feeling, to arise without closing around it, without eliminating the pure witness of being. It is an active receptivity to life.

Why do so many of us not give ourselves permission to be alive until we are absolutely assured that we will die? ...If we are not in [this present millisecond of life and conscious experience], we are not alive; we are merely thinking our lives. Yet we have seen so many die, looking back over their shoulders at their lives, shaking their heads and muttering in bewilderment, "What was that all about?"

Our suffering is caused by holding on to how things might have been, should have been, could have been.

The saddest part about being human is not paying attention. Presence is the gift of life.

We are so numb we don't even know what a direct experience is. We have an experience, then we think about it and we think the thinking about it is the experience.

Nothing is more natural than grief, no emotion more common to our daily experience. It's an innate response to loss in a world where everything is impermanent.

To heal is to touch with love that which we previously touched with fear.

Much thought has at its root a dissatisfaction with what is. Wanting is the urge for the next moment to contain what this moment does not. When there is wanting in the mind, that moment feels incomplete. Wanting is seeing elsewhere. Completeness is being right here.

Meditation allows us to directly participate in our lives instead of living life as an afterthought.