Ajahn Sumedho Quotes

#1. Suttas are not meant to be 'sacred scriptures' that tell us what to believe. One should read them, listen to them, think about them, contemplate them, and investigate the present reality, the present experience with them. Then, and only then, can one insightfully know the truth beyond words.

Ajahn Sumedho

#2. Instead of becoming the world's expert on Buddhism, just let go, let go, let go.

Ajahn Sumedho

#3. You can't leave footprints in the sands of time while sitting down.

Nelson Rockefeller

#4. Nature cared not a jot.

Herman Melville

#5. As an artist, you have to do what you feel passionate about. It has to be something you can connect with.

Stephanie Sigman

#6. We look directly into our suffering rather than try to become happy. The happiness that arises from this approach is reliable.

Ajahn Sumedho

#7. The mind of an enlightened human being is flexible and adaptable. The mind of the ignorant person is conditioned and fixed.

Ajahn Sumedho

#8. Security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expence and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others.

Thomas Paine

#9. The greatest fear of those who rule is not the opposition but not to be taken seriously.

Gunduz Vassaf

#10. The problem is grasping the clock. So what do I do? Let it go, lay it aside - put it down gently without any kind of aversion. Then I can pick it up again, see what time it is and lay it aside when necessary.

Ajahn Sumedho

#11. Children know perfectly well that unicorns aren't real, but they also know that books about unicorns, if they are good books, are true books.

Ursula K. Le Guin

#12. Of course we can always imagine more perfect conditions, how it should be ideally, how everyone should behave. But it is not our task to create an ideal. It's our task to see how it is, and to learn from the world as it is. For the awakening of the heart, conditions are always good enough.

Ajahn Sumedho

#13. Meditation is a skilful letting go: gently but with resolution.

Ajahn Sumedho

#14. I contemplated my greed for peace. And I did not seek tranquillity anymore.

Ajahn Sumedho

#15. A new day is here. Yesterday is a memory. Tomorrow is unknown. Now is the knowing.

Ajahn Sumedho

#16. She's got her God and she's got good wine, Aretha Franklin, and Patsy Cline.

Trisha Yearwood

#17. We shake with joy, we shake with grief.
What a time they have, these two
housed as they are in the same body.

Mary Oliver