Life is a vast, unknowable movement of wholeness with no one separate from it and nothing outside of it.
Toni PackerRead
The emergence and blossoming of understanding, love, and intelligence has nothing to do with any tradition, no matter how ancient or impressive-it has nothing to do with time. It happens on its own when a human being questions, wonders, inquires, listens, and looks without getting stuck in fear, pleasure, and pain. When self-concern is quiet, in abeyance, heaven and earth are open.
Interpretation
Understanding and personal growth arise from inquiry and openness rather than tradition or external circumstances.
This quote by Toni Packer highlights that true understanding and the development of love and intelligence are not bound by traditions or the passage of time. Instead, they flourish through an individual's genuine curiosity, desire to learn, and willingness to observe the world without being hindered by personal fears or desires. When one releases their self-centered concerns, they create space for profound insights and connections to emerge.
In practice
This quote can be used in a motivational speech about personal development.
Life is a vast, unknowable movement of wholeness with no one separate from it and nothing outside of it.
Awareness cannot be taught, and when it is present it has no context. All contexts are created by thought and are therefore corruptible by thought. Awareness simply throws light on what is, without any separation whatsoever.
Expectations are not based on reality. They are observations, expected realities, or beliefs of what you think will happen. Expectations of others stop us from acting as our highest selves and reaching our full potential.
A real writer learns from earlier writers the way a boy learns from an apple orchard -- by stealing what he has a taste for, and can carry off
So much the worse for those who fear wine, for it is because they have some bad thoughts which they are afraid the liquor will extract from their hearts.
If the building of a bridge does not enrich the awareness of those who work on it, then the bridge ought not to be built.
I compare myself with my former self, not with others. Not only that, I tend to compare my current self with the best I have been, which is when I have been midly manic. When I am my present "normal" self, I am far removed from when I have been my liveliest, most productive, most intense, most outgoing and effervescent. In sort, for myself, I am a hard act to follow.
When you have those two languages - an analytic one like English and a synthetic, very sensual thing like Russian, you get almost a psychotic sense of humanity that permeates nearly everything. It can help you understand, and it can discourage you, because you see how little can be done.
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