Top 35 Henepola Gunaratana Quotes
#1. We have to learn to be kind to ourselves. In the long run avoiding unpleasantness is a very unkind thing to do to yourself.
Henepola Gunaratana
#3. The way to deal with danger is to know approximately how much of it there is, where it is likely to be found, and how to deal with it when it arises.
Henepola Gunaratana
#4. The you that goes in one side of the meditation experience is not the same you that comes out the other side.
Henepola Gunaratana
#6. The Buddha's message was simple but profound. Neither a life of self-indulgence nor one of self-mortification can bring happiness. Only a middle path, avoiding these two extremes, leads to peace of mind, wisdom, & complete liberation from the dissatisfactions of life.
Henepola Gunaratana
#8. [M]orality is not a ritualistic obedience to a code of behavior imposed by an external authority. It is rather a healthy habit pattern that you have consciously and voluntarily chosen to impose upon yourself because you recognize its superiority to your present behavior.
Henepola Gunaratana
#9. You can't ever get everything you want. It is impossible. Luckily, there is another option: You can learn to control your mind, to step outside of the endless cycle of desire and aversion.
Henepola Gunaratana
#10. Civilization changes man on the outside. Meditation softens him within, through and through.
Henepola Gunaratana
#11. But look within and watch the stuff coming up-restlessness, anxiety, impatience, pain-just watch it come up and don't get involved. Much to your surprise, it will simply go away. It rises, it passes away. As simple as that. There is another word for self-discipline. It is patience.
Henepola Gunaratana
#12. View all problems as challenges. Look upon negativities that arise as opportunities to learn and to grow. Don't run from them, condemn yourself, or bury your burden in saintly silence. You have a problem? Great. More grist for the mill. Rejoice, dive in, and investigate.
Henepola Gunaratana
#13. The process of becoming who you will be begins first with the total acceptance of who you are.
Henepola Gunaratana
#14. You can learn not to want what you want, to recognize desires but not be controlled by them.
Henepola Gunaratana
#15. Pain is inevitable, suffering is not. Pain and suffering are two different animals.
Henepola Gunaratana
#17. Let come what comes, and accommodate yourself to that, whatever it is. If good mental images arise, that is fine. If bad mental images arise, that is fine, too. Look on all of it as equal, and make yourself comfortable with whatever happens.
Henepola Gunaratana
#18. Vipassana: looking into something with clarity and precision, seeing each component as distinct, piercing all the way through so as to perceive the most fundamental reality of that thing.
Henepola Gunaratana
#19. Discipline is a difficult word for most of us. It conjures up images of somebody standing over you with a stick, telling you that you're wrong. But self-discipline is different. It's the skill of seeing through the hollow shouting of your own impulses and piercing their secret.
Henepola Gunaratana
#20. The principal cause of suffering is craving. Once craving is eliminated, much suffering will be eliminated. Still more suffering will be eliminated once ignorance is eliminated. Both craving and ignorance are equally powerful defilements that cause suffering.
Henepola Gunaratana
#21. The brain does not manufacture thoughts unless we stimulate it with habitual verbalizing. When we train ourselves by constant practice to stop verbalizing, the brain can experience things as they are.
Henepola Gunaratana
#23. You can't make radical changes in the pattern of your life until you see yourself exactly as you are now. As soon as you do that changes will flow naturally.
Henepola Gunaratana
#24. Why do you have to do all this after attaining a jhana? Jhana is like a juggling act. You keep things suspended in the air or balanced. Then you drop them. Then you start over.
Henepola Gunaratana
#25. Watch the functioning of your own mind in a calm and detached manner so you can gain insight into your own behavior.
Henepola Gunaratana
#26. No problem. You are not crazier than you were yesterday. It has always been this way, and you just never noticed.
Henepola Gunaratana
#27. By silencing the mind, we can experience real peace. As long as various kinds of thoughts agitate the brain, we don't experience 100 percent peace.
Henepola Gunaratana
#28. Mindfulness helps us freeze the frame so that we can become aware of our sensations and experiences as they are, without the distorting coloration of socially conditioned responses or habitual reactions.
Henepola Gunaratana
#30. The present moment is changing so fast that we often do not notice its existence at all. Every moment of mind is like a series of pictures passing through a projector. Some of the pictures come from sense impressions. Others come from memories of past experiences or from fantasies of the future.
Henepola Gunaratana
#31. Whatever attitudes we habitually use toward ourselves, we will use on others, and whatever attitudes we habitually use toward others, we will use on ourselves.
Henepola Gunaratana
#32. Each step along the Buddha's path to happiness requires practising mindfulness until it becomes part of your daily life.
Henepola Gunaratana
#33. No matter how hard you pursue pleasure and success, there are times when you fail. No matter how fast you flee, there are times when pain catches up with you.
Henepola Gunaratana
#34. When you have learned compassion for yourself, compassion for others is automatic.
Henepola Gunaratana
#35. Mindfulness gives you time. Time gives you choices. Choices, skillfully made, lead to freedom. You don't have to be swept away by your feeling. You can respond with wisdom and kindness rather than habit and reactivity.
Henepola Gunaratana
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top
