Anxiety and desire are two, often conflicting, orientations to the unknown. Both are tilted toward the future. Desire implies a willingness, or… — Mark Epstein Anxiety Copy Share Image
“the Buddha may well have been the original psychoanalyst, or, at least, the first to use the mode of analytic inquiry that… — Mark Epstein Copy Share Image
The willingness to face traumas - be they large, small, primitive or fresh - is the key to healing from them. They… — Mark Epstein Aspect Copy Share Image
One of the age-old truths about love is that while it offers unparalleled opportunities for union and the lifting of ego boundaries,… — Mark Epstein Age Copy Share Image
The central premise of this book is that the Western psychological notion of what it means to have a self is flawed. — Mark Epstein Book Copy Share Image
“In making a path like the Buddha, we discover our own capacities for relationship. Doing this is like feeling our way in… — Mark Epstein Buddha Copy Share Image
“The teaching of the sexual tantras all come down to one point. Although desire, of whatever shape or form, seeks completion, there… — Mark Epstein Buddhism Copy Share Image
The picture we present to ourselves of who we think we ought to be obscures who we really are. — Mark Epstein Thinking Copy Share Image
“A recently deceased American Zen master and navy veteran, John Daido Loori, used to say that those who think Buddhism is just… — Mark Epstein Buddhism Copy Share Image
“The early parent-child environment, the balance between being and doing, lives on in the mind. Mindfulness offers an opportunity to see these… — Mark Epstein Mental health Copy Share Image
If things do not exist as fixed, independent entities, then how can they die? Our notion of death as the sudden expiration… — Mark Epstein Absurd Copy Share Image
There is a yearning that is as spiritual as it is sensual. Even when it degenerates into addiction, there is something salvageable… — Mark Epstein Addiction Copy Share Image
In building a path through the self to the far shore of awareness, we have to carefully pick our way through our… — Mark Epstein Awareness Copy Share Image
“With some gratitude, I realized that my awareness was now stronger than my neurosis. This did not mean that things would never… — Mark Epstein Awareness Copy Share Image
If aspects of the person remain undigested-cut off, denied, projected, rejected, indulged, or otherwise unassimilated-they become the points around which the core… — Mark Epstein Aspect Copy Share Image
“[The Buddha] is not dividing himself into worthy and unworthy pieces; he is one being, indivisible, immune from the tendency to double… — Mark Epstein Buddhism Copy Share Image
Desire is a teacher: When we immerse ourselves in it without guilt, shame, or clinging, it can show us something special about… — Mark Epstein Clinging Copy Share Image
When we seek happiness through accumulation, either outside of ourselves-from other people, relationships, or material goods-or from our own self-development, we are… — Mark Epstein Accumulation Copy Share Image
To be free, to come to terms with our lives, we have to have a direct experience of ourselves as we really… — Mark Epstein Direct Copy Share Image
“Form is emptiness", the Buddhists teach, but form is also form. I would never be able to approach the emptiness of form… — Mark Epstein Buddhism Copy Share Image
While the primary function of formal Buddhist meditation is to create the possibility of the experience of "being," my work as a… — Mark Epstein Buddhism Copy Share Image
Trauma never goes away completely, it changes perhaps, softens some with time, but never completely goes away. — Mark Epstein Grief Copy Share Image
“We do not have to cure every neurosis, we just have to learn how not to be caught by them. This is… — Mark Epstein Attention Copy Share Image
I have come to see that our problem is that we don't know what happiness is. We confuse it with a life… — Mark Epstein Ability Copy Share Image
