Joseph Goldstein Quotes

#1. My friend Joseph Goldstein, one of the finest vipassana teachers I know, likens this shift in awareness to the experience of being fully immersed in a film and then suddenly realizing that you are sitting in a theater watching a mere play of light on a wall.

Sam Harris

#2. If we're more accepting, more peaceful, less judgmental, less selfish, then the whole world is that much more loving and peaceful, that much less judgmental and selfish.

Joseph Goldstein

#3. Mind is the forerunner of all things. Speak or act with an impure mind, suffering follows as the wagon wheel follows the hoof of the ox. Mind is the forerunner of all things. Speak or act with peaceful mind, happiness follows like a shadow that never leaves.

Joseph Goldstein

#4. Generosity, love, compassion, or devotion do not depend on a high IQ.

Joseph Goldstein

#5. this quintessential Zen statement: "There is no right and no wrong, but right is right and wrong is wrong.

Joseph Goldstein

#6. He turned the corner and flipped me off at the same time. See? Men could multitask. I was so proud of him.

Darynda Jones

#7. When we have too much faith, we can become dogmatic, attached to our own views. And we can see all too often how this blind belief leads to so much conflict and suffering in the world.

Joseph Goldstein

#8. The world is like that boat, tossed by the storms of greed and hatred and fear.

Joseph Goldstein

#9. In the second training, we develop energy, concentration, and mindfulness. These are the meditative and life tools that enable us to awaken. Without them we simply act out the patterns of our conditioning.

Joseph Goldstein

#10. Better than one hundred years lived without seeing the arising and passing of things / Is one day lived seeing their arising and passing.2 What does this say about what we value and work for in our lives, and about the liberating effect of seeing directly, in the moment, the truth of change?

Joseph Goldstein

#11. On the deepest level, problems such as war and starvation are not solved by economics and politics alone. Their source is prejudice and fear in the human heart - and their solution also lies in the human heart.

Joseph Goldstein

#12. We do not know when any seed will come to fruition. We can experience the karmic results of our actions in this lifetime, in the next life, or at any time in the future. But our present actions influence which karmic seeds have the opportunity to come to fruition.

Joseph Goldstein

#13. As a solid mass of rock Is not moved by the wind, So a sage is not moved by praise and blame.

Joseph Goldstein

#14. Actions rooted in greed, hatred, or ignorance bring unpleasant results.

Joseph Goldstein

#15. When the momentum of mindfulness is well developed, it works like a boomerang; even if we want to distract ourselves, the mind naturally rebounds to a state of awareness.

Joseph Goldstein

#16. All things arise when the appropriate conditions are present, and all things pass away as conditions change. Behind the process, there is no "self" who is running the show.

Joseph Goldstein

#17. We all know people who become strongly identified with, and attached to, their intelligence. It can become a big ego trap, harmful to oneself or others. Intelligence can also be a great blessing, providing invaluable clarity.

Joseph Goldstein

#18. So it is very helpful to begin to recognize this comparing mind, this conceit of "I'm better than" or "I'm worse than" someone else. When we do not see it clearly, it becomes the source of much suffering. It makes us feel separated and apart from others; we reinforce the contraction of self.

Joseph Goldstein

#19. Accept The Movement, Everything Is Ok.

Rishi Prabhakar

#20. We are seeing some challenges and some changes in American business, American enterprise, but the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award is a reminder of things that must never change: the passion for excellence, the drive to innovate, the hard work that goes with any successful enterprise.

George W. Bush

#21. The tremendous danger is that this belief - that genuine happiness comes only from pleasant feelings - becomes a strong motivation to stay closed to anything unpleasant. But by staying closed to all unpleasantness, we also stay closed to our own wellspring of compassion.

Joseph Goldstein

#22. And one abides independent, not clinging to anything in the world.

Joseph Goldstein

#23. Spiritual ardency is the wellspring of a courageous heart. It gives us the strength to continue through all the difficulties of the journey. The question for us is how to practice and cultivate ardency, so that it becomes a powerful and onward-leading force in our lives.

Joseph Goldstein

#24. Nothing at all can prevent the universal process of birth, growth, decay, and death.

Joseph Goldstein

#25. Every time we become aware of a thought, as opposed to being lost in a thought, we experience that opening of the mind.

Joseph Goldstein

#26. Guilt is a manifestation of condemnation or aversion towards oneself, which does not understand the changing transformative quality of mind.
'Seeking the Heart of Wisdom

Joseph Goldstein

#27. Human is very odd living being. I have not understood anything so far.

Shankar Lamichhane

#28. A healthy self and an empty self are not contradictory; it just appears so because we use the same language to describe two different things. The whole path of meditation is about understanding that the self as an unchanging entity is a fiction, an illusory mental construct.

Joseph Goldstein

#29. Hatred never ceases by hatred; it only ceases by love.

Joseph Goldstein

#30. The emphasis in meditation is very much on undistracted awareness: not thinking about things, not analyzing, not getting lost in the story, but just seeing the nature of what is happening in the mind. Careful, accurate observation of the moment's reality is the key to the whole process.

Joseph Goldstein

#31. Mindfulness practice begins to open up everything. We open our mind to memories, to emotions, to different sensations in the body. In meditation this happens in a very organic way, because we are not searching, we are not pulling or probing, we are just sitting and watching.

Joseph Goldstein

#32. It is the truth that liberates, not your efforts to be free.

Joseph Goldstein

#33. She lends her pen,
to thoughts of him,
that flow from it,
in her solitary.
For she is his poet,
And he is her poetry.

Lang Leav

#34. Ma Baxter rocked complacently. They were all pleased whenever she made a joke. Her good nature made the same difference in the house as the hearth-fire had made in the chill of the evening.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings