Quotes by Monks

Violence is essentially wordless and it can begin only where thought and rational communication have broken down.

I will not fear for you are ever with me and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

There is not a flower that opens not a seed that falls into the ground and not an ear of wheat that nods on the end of its stalk in the wind that does not preach and proclaim the greatness and the mercy of God to the whole world.

Thomas Merton

The Holy Spirit . . . wants to flow through us and realize all these wonderful possibilities in the world - if we only open ourselves and allow it to happen.

Br. David Steindl-Rast

If people are suffering then they must look within themselves. ... Happiness is not something ready-made [Buddha] can give you. It comes from your own actions.

The Dalai Lama

Whatever you do in revenge against your brother will appear all at once in your heart at the time of payer.

The Desert Fathers

He who labors as he prays lifts his heart to God with his hands.

Bernard of Clairvaux

Do not want things to turn out as they seem best to you but as God pleases. Then you will be free from confusion and thankful in prayer.

The Desert Fathers

A little lifting of the heart suffices a little remembrance of God one act of inward worship are prayers which however short are nevertheless acceptable to God.

Brother Lawrence

We ought to act with God in the greatest simplicity speak to Him frankly and plainly and implore His assistance in our affairs.

Brother Lawrence

Constant prayer quickly straightens out our thoughts.

The Desert Fathers

You need not cry very loud he is nearer to us than we think.

Brother Lawrence

Rejoice always pray constantly and in all circumstances give thanks.

The Desert Fathers

Do I want to pray or only to think about my human problems? Do I want to pray or simply kneel there contemplating my sorrow? Do I want to direct my prayer toward God or let it direct itself towards me?

Hubert Van Zeller

What we love we shall grow to resemble.

Bernard of Clairvaux

Whatever you do in revenge against your brother will appear all at once in your heart at the time of payer.

The Desert Fathers

He who labors as he prays lifts his heart to God with his hands.

Bernard of Clairvaux

Do not want things to turn out as they seem best to you but as God pleases. Then you will be free from confusion and thankful in prayer.

The Desert Fathers

A little lifting of the heart suffices a little remembrance of God one act of inward worship are prayers which however short are nevertheless acceptable to God.

Brother Lawrence

We ought to act with God in the greatest simplicity speak to Him frankly and plainly and implore His assistance in our affairs.

Brother Lawrence

Constant prayer quickly straightens out our thoughts.

The Desert Fathers

You need not cry very loud he is nearer to us than we think.

Brother Lawrence

Rejoice always pray constantly and in all circumstances give thanks.

The Desert Fathers

Hubert Van Zeller

What we love we shall grow to resemble.

Bernard of Clairvaux

True love always brings joy to ourself and to the one we love. If our love does not bring joy to both of us it is not true love.

Thich Nhat Hanh

The truth that many people never understand until it is too late is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt.

Thomas Merton

There are times I think I am not sure of something which I absolutely know.

Mongkut

If you want others to be happy practice compassion. If you want to be happy practice compassion.

The Dalai Lama

I will not fear for you are ever with me and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

Thomas Merton

We are obliged to love one another. We are not strictly bound to "like" one another.

Thomas Merton

We must make the choices that enable us to fulfill the deepest capacities of our real selves.

Thomas Merton

We have what we seek. It is there all the time and if we give it time it will make itself known to us.

Thomas Merton

My life is ... a mystery which I do not attempt to really understand as though 1 were led by the hand in a night where I see nothing but can fully depend on the love and protection of Him who guides me.

Thomas Merton

If people are suffering then they must look within themselves. ... Happiness is not something ready-made [Buddha] can give you. It comes from your own actions.

The Dalai Lama

Non-possession” does not mean having nothing. It does not mean to live as a penniless beggar. Rather than meaning having nothing, it is the idea of not possessing what we do not need. The more we possess, The more we have attachments.

Boep Joeng

When the mind is truly at peace, wherever you are is pleasant, Whether you live in a marketplace or in a mountain hermitage.

Baisao

Our inner space and our peace of mind are affected by our outer space.

Thich Nhat Hanh

The bad things, don't do them.The good things, try to do them.Try to purify, subdue your own mind.That is the teaching of all buddhas.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Dear friends, do you know that you are lucky people? You don't have any cows to lose.

Thich Nhat Hanh

But deluded people don't realize that their own mind is the Buddha. They keep searching outside.

Bodhidharma

Suppose boredom is a backstairs to liberation — insignificant, and so often overlooked. No one who has not known its higher degrees can claim to have lived. Not the Relative Boredom of long waiting at junctions for railway connections on the way to visit friends—or the rashly accepted week-end with acquaintances—the reviewing of a dull book. In such Relative Boredom the "wasting-of-time"-feeling only heightens the enjoyment of the coming escape, the anticipation of which sustains us meanwhile. Absolute Boredom is rather the pain of nausea, it is the loss of one's livelihood as for the pianist who loses his hands, the unsatiable desire for what we know makes us sick, it is the Great Drought, the "Carnal physic for the sick soul", the Dark Night of the Soul after the climbing of Mount Carmel, it is the pillar of salt, the exile from the land which is no more, the Sin against the Holy Ghost, the break-up of patterns, the horror that waits alone in the night, the entry into the desert where Death mocks by serving one one's daily food and one cannot bear hut to keep the darkness of one's own shadow before one for the very brightness of the light that reveals the universal emptiness. Do not try to turn back now — here in the desert perhaps there are doors open—in the cool woods they are overgrown, and in the busy cities they have built over them.

Nanamoli Thera

The present life of man upon earth, O King, seems to me in comparison with that time which is unknown to us like the swift flight of a sparrow through the mead-hall where you sit at supper in winter, with your Ealdormen and thanes, while the fire blazes in the midst and the hall is warmed, but the wintry storms of rain or snow are raging abroad. The sparrow, flying in at one door and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry tempest, but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, passing from winter to winter again. So this life of man appears for a little while, but of what is to follow or what went before we know nothing at all.

Bede

The word 'inauthentic' is used by Heidegger to describe the ostrich-like attitude of the man who seeks to escape from his inescapable self-responsibility by becoming an anonymous member of a crowd. This is the normal attitude of nearly everybody. To be 'authentic' a man must be constantly and deliberately aware of his total responsibility for what he is. For example, a judge may disclaim personal responsibility for sentencing people to punishment. He will say that as a judge it is his duty to punish. In other words it is as an anonymous representative of the Judiciary that he punishes, and it is the Judiciary that must take the responsibility. This man is inauthentic. If he wishes to be authentic he must think to himself, whenever he sits on the Bench or draws his salary, 'Why do I punish? Because, as a judge, it is my duty to punish. Why am I a judge? Is it perhaps my duty to be a judge? No. I am a judge because I myself choose to be a judge. I choose to be one who punishes in the name of the Law. Can I, if I really wish, choose not to be a judge? Yes, I am absolutely free at any moment to stop being a judge, if I so choose. If this is so, when a guilty man comes up before me for sentence, do I have any alternative but to punish him? Yes, I can get up, walk out of the courtroom, and resign my job. Then if, instead, I punish him, am I responsible? I am totally responsible.

Nanavira Thera

Everyday as we die, we must be reborn. If there were no death, life would be meaningless.

Boep Joeng

It is by desiring to grow in love that we receive the Holy Spirit, and the thirst for more charity is the effect of this more abundant reception.

Thomas Merton

The Holy Spirit is the most perfect gift of the Father to men, and yet He is the one gift which the Father gives most easily.

Thomas Merton

We should always be grateful for the faults in our partner because if they didn't have those faults from the start, they would have been able to marry someone much better than us

Ajahn Brahm

...The miracle is not to walk on water or in thin air, but to walk on Earth. Walk in such a way that you become fully alive and joy and happiness are possible. That is the miracle that everyone can perform.... If you have mindfulness, concentration, and insight then every step you make on this Earth is performing a miracle.

Thich Nhat Hanh

If you abandon your two glasses of wine, it is to show your children, your friends, and your society that your life is not only for yourself. Your life is for your ancestors, future generations, and also your society. To stop drinking two glasses of wine every week is a very deep practice, even if it has not brought you any harm. That is the insight of a bodhisattva who knows that everything she does is done for all her ancestors and future generations... In modern life, people think that their body belongs to them and they can do anything they want to it... This is one of the manifestations of individualism. But, according to the teaching of emptiness, your body is not yours. Your body belongs to your ancestors, your parents, and future generations. It also belongs to society and to all other living beings. All of them have come together to bring about the presence of this body--the trees, clouds, everything. Keeping your body healthy is to express gratitude to the whole cosmos, to all ancestors, and also not to betray the future generations," (64-65).

Thich Nhat Hanh

Thus it looks in the last analysis as if the soul which serves God in spirit and in truth enjoys a very unusual kind of peace: not the satisfying inward rest which we would have expected, nor the outward rest of having everything in order and nothing left out, but a rest which consists in contentment at having sacrificed both to the will of God.

Dom Hubert Van Zeller

All love may begin by being passionate, especially for younger people. But in the process of living together, they have to learn and practice love, so that selfishness--the tendency to possess--will diminsh, and the elemetns of understanding and gratitude will settle in, little by little, until their love becomes nourishing, protecting, and reassuring," (41).

Thich Nhat Hanh

If the problem can be solved why worry? If the problem cannot be solved worrying will do you no good.

Śāntideva

Nowadays all over the world fighting goes on for freedom and independence but it is hard to find anyone to whom the mystery of the godlike freedom of children of the Heavenly Father has been revealed.

Sophrony Sakharov

The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth in the present moment.

Thich Nhat Hanh

...everywhere I am is true.

Baisao

The more I examine and observe experience (What else can one do? Build castles?), the more I find that I can only say of consciousness (and in this I find a notable confirmation in the Pali Suttas) that it seems only describable (knowable) “in terms of what it arises dependent upon” (i.e. seeing-cum-seen … mind-knowing-cum-mind, known or mind cum-ideas), that is, negatively as to itself. And so, instead of being said to appear, it should rather be called that negativeness or “decompression of being” which makes the appearance of life, movement, behaviour, etc., and their opposites, possible in things and persons. But while life, etc. cannot be or not be without the cooperation of the negative presence of consciousness, which gives room for them (and itself) to “come to be” in this way (gaining its own peculiar form of negative being, perhaps from them)—the only possible way of being—they are, by ignorance, simultaneously individualized in actual experience. Unindividualized experience cannot, I think, be called experience at all. Thus there appears the positive illusion also of individual consciousness: “illusion” because its individuality is borrowed from the individualness of (1) its percepts, and (2) the body seen as its perceiving instrument.Unindividualized perception cannot, any more, I think, be called perception at all. The supposed individuality of consciousness (without which it is properly inconceivable) is derived from that of its concomitants. This illusory individualization of consciousness, this mirage, manifests itself in the sense both of “my consciousness” and of “consciousness that is not mine” (as e.g. in the sensation of being seen when one fancies or actually finds one is caught, say, peeping through a keyhole, and from which the abstract notion of universal consciousness develops). The example shows that the experience of being seen does not necessarily mean that another’s consciousness is seeing one, as one may have been mistaken in one’s fancy owing to a guilty sense (though the experience was just as real at the time), before one found no one was there. To repeat: my supposed consciousness seems only distinguishable from the supposed consciousness that is not mine on the basis of the particular non-consciousness (i.e. material body, etc.) through which its negativity is manifested and with which it is always and inevitably associated in some way. It is impossible, I think, to overemphasize the importance of this fact.

Nanamoli Thera

Qui me amat, amet et canem meum. (Who loves me will love my dog also.)

Bernard of Clairvaux

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