This body is fragile. It is just flesh. Listen to the heartbeat. Life depends on the pumping of a muscle. — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share Image
“The collapsing of an empire. This changing word moves inexorably on. Thoughts bubble and the stiller the mind the more palpable the… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share Image
“There is nothing one can have that one cannot fear to lose. Instead of living life in order to have more abundantly,… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share Image
What is it that makes a person insist passionately on the existence of metaphysical realities that can be neither demonstrated nor refuted? (176) — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share Image
...inner spiritual transformation is just as dependent upon the effect of our economic life upon the world as transformations in the world… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share Image
In taking the everyday details of life for granted, we fail to appreciate the extraordinary fact that we are conscious at all. — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share Image
“Life does not mechanically alternate between aloneness and participation, rather it embraces them both in an undivided unity.” — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share Image
“Anxiety, alienation, loneliness, emptiness, and meaninglessness are the fruits of living as an isolated subject admist a multitude of lifeless objects. Although… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share Image
“Such altruism, generated in the seclusion of one's own thoughts, becomes a subtle means of evading concrete inter-personal responsibility and of justifying… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share Image
“For me, Buddhism is like a living organism. If it is to flourish outside self-enclosed ghettos of believers, it will have to… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share Image
“Life is a groundless ground: no sooner does it appear, than it disappears, only to renew itself, then immediately break up and… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share Image
“Our religion, with its beliefs, rituals, and dogmas becomes another segment among all the other segments that constitute our linear and fragmented… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share Image
“One needs to be more vitally conscious of what is happening now. This is not to deny the reality of past and… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share Image
Agnosticism is no excuse for indecision. If anything, it is a catalyst for action; for in shifting concern away from a future… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share Image
“The astronaut in his technical and complex machine, effortlessly orbiting the earth, alone and weightless in the emptiness of space, is the… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share Image
So the Buddha is presenting awakening not as a single mystical experience that may come upon us at some meditation, some private… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share Image
“Gotama did for the self what Copernicus did for the earth: he put it in its rightful place, despite its continuing to… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share Image
“[T]he changing, functional, causal, and conditioned world, present to ordinary sensory and mental experience, was what was ultimately real. To be real… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share Image
How extraordinary it is to be here at all. Awareness of death can jolt us awake to the sensuality of existence. Breath… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share Image
“I was encouraged to ask in all seriousness what this life is for, what matters most for myself and others, what non-negotiable… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share Image
“Patience is the specific antidote to anger and hatred. It is an attitude of accepting both the harm caused by others and… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share Image
“What is it that makes a person insist passionately on the existence of metaphysical realities that can be neither demonstrated nor refuted?… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share Image
“Being-in-the-world means that I am inextricably knit into the fabric of this fluid, indivisible, and contingent reality I share with others. There… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share Image
“For others, however, the significance of anxiety in disclosing a fundamental insight into human existence is grasped. At this point their consciences… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share Image
“No matter how hard I tried, I was incapable of giving more importance to a hypothetical, post-mortem existence than to this very… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share Image
“I was more concerned with refining my sense of the sheer mysteriousness of life so that it infused each moment of my… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share Image
“Nowadays, the tendency to be preoccupied with having, at the expense of losing touch with the dimension of being, is becoming ever… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share Image
“Habitually, as we anxiously flee from the responsibility of our existence as a whole, we place our hope in the particular objects… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share Image
Expectations of goals and rewards (such as Enlightenment) are recognized for what they are: last-ditch attempts by the ghostly self to subvert… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share Image
“What lies ahead is revealed to us through our being confronted with possibilities. Our possibilities, however, are not unconditional and infinite but… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share Image
Evasion of the unadorned immediacy of life is as deep-seated as it is relentless. Even with the ardent desire to be aware… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share Image
Awakening is not a state but a process: an ethical way of life and commitment that enables human flourishing. As such, it… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share Image
“The meaning of man's life, as we have seen, is not measured by what he has, but by what he is. No… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share Image
“Gotama did for the self what Copernicus did for the earth: he put it in its rightful place, despite its continuing to appear just… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share
“We perceive the world in a particular way and confidently expect it to conform to its appearance. But we fail to recognize that certain… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share
“Anxiety, alienation, loneliness, emptiness, and meaninglessness are the fruits of living as an isolated subject admist a multitude of lifeless objects. Although our scope… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share
“... We have to constantly confront our deepest anxieties, our emptiness, our despair, our doubts; and there is nowhere for us to escape and… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share
“There is nothing one can have that one cannot fear to lose. Instead of living life in order to have more abundantly, live life… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share
Buddhism, I think, is probably facing the single most difficult transition from one historical epoch to another, which is really the transition to modernity. — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share
[Mindfulness] is not concerned with anything transcendent or divine. It serves as an antidote to theism, a cure for sentimental piety, a scalpel for… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share
The art of dharma practice requires commitment, technical accomplishment, and imagination. As with all arts, we will fail to realize its full potential if… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share
The denial of "self" challenges only the notion of a static self independent of body and mind-not the ordinary sense of ourself as a… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share
While 'Buddhism' suggests another belief system, 'dharma practice' suggests a course of action. The four ennobling truths are not propositions to believe; they are… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share
“The inner aim of thought is never fully realized until it ripens into vocal utterances through which others can have access- albeit indirect- to… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share
“Our religion, with its beliefs, rituals, and dogmas becomes another segment among all the other segments that constitute our linear and fragmented existence. It… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share
“For others, however, the significance of anxiety in disclosing a fundamental insight into human existence is grasped. At this point their consciences will never… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share
“Wisdom that neglects method leads to excessive introversion and an inability to effectively communicate with others. Method without wisdom can produce well-intentioned but naive… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share
So the Buddha is presenting awakening not as a single mystical experience that may come upon us at some meditation, some private moment of… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share
![“[T]he changing, functional, causal, and conditioned world, present to ordinary sensory and mental experience, was what was ultimately real. To be real [...] means to be capable of producing effects in the concrete world. Thus a seed, a jug, wind in the trees, a desire, a thought, the pain in one’s…” quote by Stephen Batchelor](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/6bd/stephen-batchelor-5328_atheism_t-he-changing-functional-causal-and-cond_2931131.jpg)
