The greatest threat to compassion is the temptation to succumb to fantasies of moral superiority. — Stephen Batchelor Compassion Copy Share Image
The first step in this process of mindfulness is radical self-acceptance . — Stephen Batchelor Acceptance Copy Share Image
This body is fragile. It is just flesh. Listen to the heartbeat. Life depends on the pumping of a muscle. — Stephen Batchelor Body Copy Share Image
Living from our deepest understanding requires an enormous effort, especially when it goes against the stream of our instinctually programmed perceptions of… — Stephen Batchelor Effort Copy Share Image
Erotic names, robes, insignia of office, titles- the trappings of religion- confuse as much as they help. — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share Image
“Ironically, the more we crave to possess and dominate the world and others, the deeper and more unbearable becomes the chasm of… — Stephen Batchelor Emptiness Copy Share Image
“Every attitude we assume, ever word we utter, and every act we undertake establishes us in relation to others.” — 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 Change Copy Share Image
Consciousness is an emergent, contingent, and impermanent phenomenon. It has no magical capacity to break free from the field of events out… — 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 Abundantly 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 Emptiness Copy Share Image
“Much of what animated me in those days I now recognize as the romantic yearnings of an idealistic, alienated, and aimless young… — Stephen Batchelor Buddhism Copy Share Image
“... We have to constantly confront our deepest anxieties, our emptiness, our despair, our doubts; and there is nowhere for us to… — Stephen Batchelor Anxieties 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 Altruism 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 Buddhism 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 Buddhism Copy Share Image
The individuation of dharma practice occurs whenever priority is given to the resolution of a personal existential dilemma over the need to… — Stephen Batchelor Authority Copy Share Image
“p. 62 "...meditation… exposes a contradiction between the sort of person we wish to be and the kind of person we are.… — Stephen Batchelor Meditation Copy Share Image
We could decide simply to remain absorbed in the mysterious, unformed, free-play of reality. This would be the choice of the mystic… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share Image
“The root of all inauthentic manifestations of being-with-others is the attitude of self-concern. It is in this state of mind that, either… — Stephen Batchelor Authenticity 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 Awakening Copy Share Image
The Buddha described his teaching as "going against the stream." The unflinching light of mindful awareness reveals the extent to which we… — Stephen Batchelor Awareness Copy Share Image
“I was perplexed by the failure of teachers at school to address what seemed the most urgent matter of all: the bewildering,… — Stephen Batchelor Atheism 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 Buddhism Copy Share Image
“One of the most difficult things to remember is to remember to remember. We forget that we live in a body with… — Stephen Batchelor Acceptance Copy Share Image
The denial of "self" challenges only the notion of a static self independent of body and mind-not the ordinary sense of ourself… — Stephen Batchelor Ambiguity Copy Share Image
“To pose a question entails that you do not know something. To ask “Who is the abbot?” means that you do not… — Stephen Batchelor Birth and death 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 Existence Copy Share Image
“By emphasizing doubt rather than belief, perplexity rather than certainty, and questions rather than answers, Zen practice granted me the freedom to… — Stephen Batchelor Buddhism 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 Atheism Copy Share Image
“The true value of any dogma or belief lies in its ability to point beyond itself to a deeper reality which can… — Stephen Batchelor Dogma Copy Share Image
As for the law of moral causation ('karma'): this is human justice dressed up as cosmic justice and then imputed to the… — Stephen Batchelor Causation Copy Share Image
To embrace suffering culminates in greater empathy, the capacity to feel what it is like for the other to suffer, which is… — Stephen Batchelor Copy Share Image
“Not only are we inescapably alone in the realms of our private thoughts, perceptions and feelings, but we are also, paradoxically, inescapably… — Stephen Batchelor Philosophy of Mind Copy Share Image
Buddhism, I think, is probably facing the single most difficult transition from one historical epoch to another, which is really the transition… — Stephen Batchelor Buddhism Copy Share Image
“Learning and education have frequently degenerated into the systematic accumulation of facts and information.” — Stephen Batchelor Education Copy Share Image
