All Quotes By Tag: Ego

“If you don’t have an ego then you must surely have a beautiful life.”

“If your taste, and therefore the taste buds of your soul, have grown accustomed to the flavor of bitterness—and consuming it to the last drop, your playful spirit has run completely dry—do this, and you’ll discover the highly sought but rarely found fountain of youth. Push far out from the populated shore, then stretch out over the side of your canoe, and peer down into the deep deep waters. When the shark begins to emerge within your reflection, don’t be afraid, let it completely devour your big head, as you have also taught the beast to consume others. Fear not! You will no longer need it on your odyssey. The humiliating disfiguration will kill you but it won’t hurt you. Rather, it will make space for your heart to turtlehead as an old, wise, and happy sage with an insatiable thirst for the drunkenness of good spirits, that can be found in every home, temple, and tavern that litters the shore, and brings cheer and love of life to the rigid bitter bones.”

“Some Consequences of the Made ThingThe End. Above these words the sky closes.It closes by turning white. NotThe white of all clouds or being within a cloud.White of worldless light. The End.Feel a silence there that reminds you of a scent.Crushed grass the hooves galloped throughOr is it the binder’s glue?Some silence never not real finally can beHeard. Silence before the first words.Precedent chaos. Or marrow work.Or just the sound of the throat opening to speak.Like those scholars of pure waterWho rode through mountains and meadowsTo drink from each fresh spring a glassAnd then with brush and ink wrote poemsOn the differences of sameness,You too feel yourself taste the silent pageOf the end and the silent page of beginning.They taste so much of whiteness never moreWhite than white that’s been lost.You have some sense of the bookAltering, page sewn secretly next to page,Last page stitched to first. O, earth—It rolls around the solar scrollTurning nothing into years and years intoNothing. At The End you’re a witness to this workThat wears the witness away. And who are youAnyway. Pronoun of the 2nd person. Lover,Stranger, God. Student, Child, Shade.Something similar gathers in you.Another way of saying I in a poem—Of saying I in a poem that realizes at the endThat I am just a distance from myself.And so are you. That same distance.”

“Right or not, I love two things more than anything else. First, I love me. Second, I love using you to love me. And if I were to add a third thing to this mess, it would be that neither of these are love.”

“It’s humbling to think how little we contribute to our own ideas.”

“Often it is not the act that hurts you but the story you tell yourself afterwards.”

“You have to stay out of the game. It’s deadly and no one ever wins. Everyone is a loser. Even seeming wins are short-lived and have the taste of bitterness mixed in with the satisfaction of personal gain. The ego is exclusive by nature. While the spirit seeks to include, the ego is unashamedly manipulative in its culling of people. The intention of self-aggrandisement is barely even covered over. The soul does not see people in terms of what it can gain. It seeks to share. It seeks to create by extension of its own and others’ true nature. The ego is extremely changeable. It has no stability. Constantly guarding against attack and looking out for its own advantage, its perceptions and thus feelings towards others are ever-shifting. This creates unhappiness. The more we veer away from our true nature, the more unhappy we feel. When we align with our better self, we feel happy again. And so the process continues until the spaces between happiness are not as long and arduous. The presence or absence of personal peace is our barometer. It will guide us even if we are not sure of the way.”

“Expecting someone to respect you is the wildest form of ego!”

“Don’t dull the voice of your heart just to please your brainAs it swells into overthought and the desire to be rightSwitch on the light of your inner lamp. Listen to your heart so you can feel from your soulDon’t discount your heart to make your logic fit.”

“Whenever ego suffers from fear of death & your practice turns to seeing impermanence, ego settles down.”

“Being aware is being aware of one’s own mind and the games it plays on itself.”

“Ego is recessive in wisdom.”

“Whoever wants the “I” to yield up its mysterious and tremendous secret must stop it from looking perpetually in the mirror, must stop the little ego’s fascination with its own image.”

“When true happiness shows up, the ego is bored with it: It’s too plain, too ordinary, and it doesn’t leave us feeling special or above the fray. It doesn’t take away our problems, which is the ego’s idea of happiness. The ego wants no more difficulties: no ore sickness, no more need for money, no more work, no more bad feelings, only unending pleasure and bliss. Such perfection is the ego’s idea of a successful life. However, the happiness the ego dreams of will never be attained by anyone. The ego denies the reality of this dimension, where challenges are necessary to evolution and blissful states and pleasure come and go.”

“People love answers, but only as long as they are the ones who came up with them.”