"We could decide simply to remain absorbed in……" — Stephen Batchelor
"We could decide simply to remain absorbed in the mysterious, unformed, free-play of reality. This would be the choice of the mystic who seeks to extinguish himself in God or Nirvana—analogous perhaps to the tendency among artists to obliterate themselves with alcohol or opiates. But if we value our participation in a shared reality in which it makes sense to make sense, then such self-abnegation would deny a central element of our humanity: the need to speak and act, to share our experience with others."
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Stephen Batchelor
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40 Quotes by Stephen Batchelor
Stephen Batchelor has 40 quotes on this site.
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...inner spiritual transformation is just as dependent upon the effect of our economic life upon the world as transformations in…
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The Buddha described his teaching as "going against the stream." The unflinching light of mindful awareness reveals the extent to…
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Evasion of the unadorned immediacy of life is as deep-seated as it is relentless. Even with the ardent desire to…
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This body is fragile. It is just flesh. Listen to the heartbeat. Life depends on the pumping of a muscle.
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This deep agnosticism is more than the refusal of conventional agnosticism to take a stand on whether God exists or…
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Our conceptions of the world affect our perceptions of the world which, in turn, condition the way we subsequently conceive…
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The origin of the conflict, frustration, and anxiety we experience does not lie in the nature of the world itself…
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It has taken four billion years of evolution to generate this kind of organism with this kind of brain, and…
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The idea that there will be something spiritual or subtle, some sort of consciousness that can escape the collapse of…
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Living from our deepest understanding requires an enormous effort, especially when it goes against the stream of our instinctually programmed…
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Buddhism, I think, is probably facing the single most difficult transition from one historical epoch to another, which is really…
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So the Buddha is presenting awakening not as a single mystical experience that may come upon us at some meditation,…
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More Abnegation Quotes
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