Steve Hagen Quotes

#1. Liberation of mind is realising that we don't need to buy any story at all. It's realising that before our confused thought, there actually is Reality. We can see it. All we have to do it to fully engage in this moment as it has come to be.

Steve Hagen

#2. True freedom doesn't lie in the maximization of choice, but, ironically, is most easily found in a life where there is little choice.

Steve Hagen

#3. If you point out the moon to a cat, she probably won't look at the sky; she'll come up and sniff your finger.

Steve Hagen

#4. Good times come and go. And bad times do the same.

Steve Hagen

#5. The issues of what a self is, how long it will last, what will happen when our bodies decay and consciousness flickers off, are all based not on what we actually see but on what we imagine.

Steve Hagen

#6. To forget the self is to remember that we don't exist alone, but in relation to other people, to other creatures, to the planet, and to the universe.

Steve Hagen

#7. Nothing holds us back but our thoughts.

Steve Hagen

#8. [L]iberation [doesn't occur] in wearing robes or performing ritual acts.

Steve Hagen

#9. The buddha-dharma ... is about directly seeing Truth, prior to forming any ideas about it. It is about responding to each particular situation as it comes ... , not according to some ... program of dos and don'ts.

Steve Hagen

#10. A buddha recognizes that anything put into speech is never completely reliable.

Steve Hagen

#11. [W]hat purpose does it serve to deny actual experience in order to run with an idea instead?

Steve Hagen

#12. The moment that we hold some solidified idea about Reality- rather than relying on direct perception of the world- we inevitably give rise to anxiety and fear.

Steve Hagen

#13. We're never called on to do what hurts. We just do what hurts out of ignorance and habit. Once we see what we're doing, we can stop.

Steve Hagen

#14. This moment is complete unto itself. There's nothing lacking in this moment

Steve Hagen

#15. We've formed many a theory and belief, but as we look about the human world, it is clear that nobody actually knows what's going on. Yet claims to Truth are being made at every hand, including the claim that there is no Truth.

Steve Hagen

#16. This desire to hold on, to somehow stop change in its tracks, is the greatest source of woe and horror and trouble in our lives.

Steve Hagen

#17. What makes human life
which is inseparable from this moment
so precious is its fleeting nature. And not that it doesn't last but that it never returns again.

Steve Hagen

#18. [W]e're caught by our concepts ... [C]oncepts are not Reality.

Steve Hagen

#19. We can easily see what actions and speech will lead us and others into hatred, confusion, difficulty, and suffering. And we can see what words and actions will not. ... Is our intention to hoodwink, mislead, inflate, or deceive others ... ?

Steve Hagen

#20. The biggest mistake we make in confusing a concept with Reality is in ... the separation of self and other.

Steve Hagen

#21. The impossibility of arriving at Truth by giving up your own authority and following the lights of others. Such a path will only lead to an opinion.

Steve Hagen

#22. Mindfulness of the body is awareness of ... the taste and smell of this moment.

Steve Hagen

#23. Your breath is a unique object to meditation because it resides right at the boundary between inside and outside, between you and the outside world.

Steve Hagen

#24. We cannot. . .begin any real inquiry into Truth, with any assumption or belief whatsoever. We must be willing to see things as they are, rather than as we hope, wish, or expect them to be.

Steve Hagen

#25. [T]here is really nothing 'out there' to get because, already, within this moment, everything is whole and complete.

Steve Hagen

#26. [W]hen you practise right meditation, you 'cease from practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words and following speech, and learn the backward step that turns your light inwardly to illuminate your self.

Steve Hagen

#27. We all know the maxim "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." It's because we want the horse to drink that we become frustrated, because it's literally not in our power to accomplish the job we've set out to do for ourselves.

Steve Hagen

#28. To deny a concept is not to embrace its opposite.

Steve Hagen

#29. Our problem is that we don't pay attention to what we actually know. We give our attention to what we think - to what we have ideas or beliefs about - and we discard what we actually see.

Steve Hagen

#30. The only way we can be free in each moment is to become what each moment is.

Steve Hagen

#31. Our ignorance is such that most of us don't realize we're thirsty. Or, if we realize we're thirsty, we look for water in the wrong place. We go into fire looking for cool refreshment. And often we're confused about what our thirst actually is.

Steve Hagen

#32. One day, soon after the Buddha's enlightenment, a man saw the Buddha walking toward him. The man had not heard of the Buddha, but he could see that there was something different about the man who was approaching, so he was moved to ask, Are you a god?

Steve Hagen

#33. When we latch on to an identity, it is easy to take offense. But we offend ourselves. We lock ourselves into very rigid ways of seeing and thinking and feeling and reacting. It doesn't have to be this way. The fact is, I'm not anything in particular. Nor are you. Nor is anyone.

Steve Hagen

#34. We might think that by tossing a ball we initiate an action, but this is merely an arbitrary point in a beginningless line of action.

Steve Hagen

#35. There can be no moral authority to tell you what to do, for no such authority can lie outside your own will.

Steve Hagen

#36. Good and bad aren't absolutes. They are beliefs, judgements, ideas based on limited knowledge as well as on the inclinations of our minds.

Steve Hagen

#37. If your idea of good opposes something else, you can be sure that [it] is not absolute or certain.

Steve Hagen

#38. [B]ecause of change, what we love continues to appear, and what we hate never lasts forever.

Steve Hagen

#39. If it's Truth we're after, we'll find that we cannot start with any assumptions or concepts whatsoever. Instead, we must approach the world with bare, naked attention, seeing it without any mental bias - without concepts, beliefs, preconceptions, presumptions, or expectations. (6)

Steve Hagen

#40. There's no rule in the end, but only the situation and the inclination of your mind

Steve Hagen

#41. When we see Reality, we are completely beyond the world of words and concepts. We experience what words cannot express, what ideas cannot contain, what speech cannot communicate.

Steve Hagen

#42. Reality is not going to change with your perception of it.

Steve Hagen

#43. We imagine that things come into existence, endure for a while, and then pass out of existence

Steve Hagen

#44. The moment we try to capture and encapsulate Truth, we have paradox, confusion, contention [and] doubt[.]

Steve Hagen

#45. If we believe in ... an everlasting self, it's tantamount to claiming that we have existed before all else came into being. We may as well fancy ourselves as being the cause of all creation.

Steve Hagen

#46. It's called enlightenment. It's nothing more or less than seeing things as they are rather than as we wish or believe them to be.

Steve Hagen

#47. There's nothing to prove, nothing to figure out, nothing to get, nothing to understand. When we finally stop explaining everything to ourselves, we may discover that in silence, complete understanding is already there.

Steve Hagen

#48. By simply attending to how we feel without trying to judge or change our feelings, we may notice that there's no real distinction between self and other. If it's a grey day inside, ... it's a grey day outside as well.

Steve Hagen

#49. Neatly packaging everything gives us the illusion we ... know something.

Steve Hagen

#50. No words - Buddha's, mine, or anyone else's - can see for you.

Steve Hagen

#51. You want to not have any problems.

Steve Hagen

#52. After ... all the philosophy and science that we've laboured on for centuries, it's becoming very hard to find a story we can buy.

Steve Hagen

#53. [S]elfless action, action done while free of a sense of self. Action in which you don't see yourself as separate from other things.

Steve Hagen

#54. Good' crystallised ... breeds arrogance and hostility

Steve Hagen

#55. Rituals, ceremonies, prayers, and special outfits are inevitable, but they do not - they cannot - express the heart of what the Buddha taught. In fact, all too often, such things get in the way. They veil the simple wisdom of the Buddha's words, and distract us from it.

Steve Hagen

#56. [O]nce in a while there's that fleeting moment when the kindest thing you can do for another is to utter a severe word or a sharp observation that may hurt momentarily;

Steve Hagen

#57. [I]mpermanence [is] the very thing that makes [life] vibrant, wonderful, and alive.

Steve Hagen

#58. When we latch on to an identity, it's easy to take offence. But we offend ourselves. We lock ourselves into very rigid ways of seeing and thinking and reacting.

Steve Hagen

#59. By our very attempt to grasp an explanation, we leave things out.

Steve Hagen

#60. Normally, a view of the world is nothing more than a set of beliefs, a way to freeze the world in our minds. But this can never match Reality, simply because the world isn't frozen. Nevertheless we carry on as though the way we've frozen it in our minds is the way it actually is.

Steve Hagen

#61. [A] book is not merely a book, it is the sun as well.

Steve Hagen

#62. Truth is not ... something to believe or disbelieve. The things we believe are always less than Truth[.]

Steve Hagen

#63. Right view is not a concept or belief. ... [It] is simply seeing Reality as it is, here and now, moment after moment[;] ... relying on bare attention ... before conceptual thought arises[;] ... relying on what we actually experience rather than on what we think.

Steve Hagen

#64. [W]e ignore the Whole, we're taken in by the parts. We're seduced by objects of our consciousness

Steve Hagen

#65. Every atom, every minuscule part of the universe is nothing other than movement and change.

Steve Hagen

#66. Belief may serve as a useful stopgap measure in the absence of actual experience, but once you see ... [it] becomes unnecessary.

Steve Hagen

#67. [E]ven in getting the wonderful things we long for, we tend to live in want of something more[.]

Steve Hagen

#68. [T]he most basic division is 'me' and 'everything else,' self and other.

Steve Hagen

#69. Give your mind a lot of space and it quiets down; try to control, quiet, or restrict it, and it goes wild.

Steve Hagen

#70. Consciousness divides Reality. It conceptualises it, packages it, and explains it to itself. Then in our ignorance, we think it's taking readings on things 'out there.

Steve Hagen

#71. Socrates pointed out that we carry on as though death were the greatest of all calamities - yet, for all we know, it might be the greatest of all blessings.

Steve Hagen

#72. Why would anyone want to awaken to the Reality that they're not even here in the first place?

Steve Hagen

#73. [W]hen we come up with any concept at all, we simultaneously create one or more opposite concepts.

Steve Hagen

#74. When we talk about others, we should be very careful to observe our motive - especially if we're talking about a person who isn't present.

Steve Hagen

#75. [T]houghts will arise. Don't be bothered by them. Don't think they're bad or that you shouldn't be having them. ... If you leave them alone, they'll depart of their own accord. This is how to 'cease all movements of the conscious mind.' You cannot do it by the direct application of your will.

Steve Hagen

#76. This will never come again

Steve Hagen

#77. Usually we hold a frozen view of ourselves as well as of the world 'out there.' ... We identify with groups, behaviours, habits, and beliefs.

Steve Hagen

#78. Whatever the world dishes up, we take it on
not on our own terms, but on the world's.

Steve Hagen

#79. We have all sorts of stories about heaven and hell, about oblivion and nothingness, about 'coming back,' and so on. But they are all stories.

Steve Hagen

#80. we face the woeful prospect that we're intelligent creatures living in a meaningless world.

Steve Hagen

#81. [A] view of the world is nothing more than a set of beliefs, a way to freeze the world in our mind. ... [T]his can never match Reality, ... because the world isn't frozen.

Steve Hagen

#82. And here we are with our improved human world that we've spent a great deal of time and energy working on. We've improved the rivers and the lakes and the land and our society and our ways of living to the point where we now wonder if the human race will survive.

Steve Hagen

#83. We commonly see things 'out there' and go after them. Our mind is thus characterised by division and separation.

Steve Hagen

#84. Belief is at best an educated, informed conjecture about Reality.

Steve Hagen

#85. Ignorance is not the inability to see, but the act of ignoring what is really going on in favour of what we imagine.

Steve Hagen

#86. All we ever find is the arising and ceasing of the world as it has come to be now. When you snap your fingers, it's already gone. All that persists is thus. Thus is not an object of mind but Mind Itself.

Steve Hagen

#87. [W]hen we speak about people based on what we think, feel, or hope rather than on what we observe or experience, we deprive them of their humanity. We have replaced what they are, in all their fluid vitality, with our own crystallised ideas, opinions, and beliefs.

Steve Hagen

#88. How can a hard and fast view of a world that is never hard and fast possibly be accurate?

Steve Hagen

#89. We pass by the joys of life without knowing we've missed anything.

Steve Hagen

#90. Buddha is not someone you pray to, or try to get something from. Nor is a buddha someone you bow down to. A buddha is simply a person who is awake - nothing more or less.

Steve Hagen

#91. [W]ith the sense of self gone, ... actions naturally become uncalculated and free.

Steve Hagen

#92. As we live out of such a mind, we become generous, with no sense of tolerance. We become patient, with no sense of putting up with anything. We become compassionate, with no sense of separation. And we become wise, with no sense of having to straighten anyone out.

Steve Hagen

#93. We have to realize what we are. The range of what is human is vast, ranging from the saintly to the monstrous. When we speak of other human beings as if they somehow do not belong to our species, we ignore the reality of our very nature.

Steve Hagen

#94. [H]ow can something cease to exist that has no solid existence in the first place?

Steve Hagen

#95. We can only be here. We can't leave. We are always here.

Steve Hagen