The most strongly enforced of all known taboos is the taboo against knowing who or what you really are behind the mask of your apparently separate, independent and isolated ego. – Alan Watts
Knowing the answer to “Who am I?” happens only in the moment. The answer has nothing to do with the past. – A. H. Almaas
If the structures of the human mind remain unchanged, we will always end up re-creating fundamentally the same world, the same evils, the same dysfunction. – Eckhart Tolle
Ours is a society of denial that conditions us to protect ourselves from any direct and difficult discomfort. – Jack Kornfield
Finally it has penetrated my thick skull. This life – this moment – is no dress rehearsal. This is it. – F. Knebel
Courage
Etymology: Middle English corage, from Latin cor ~ heart; mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty.
I’ve always felt that a person’s intelligence is drectly reflected by the number of conflicting points of view he can entertain simultaneously on the same topic. – Abigail Adams (First Lady)
Flowers are restful to look at. They have neither emotions nor conflicts. – Sigmund Freud
The quality of your life is the quality of your relationships. – Anthony Robbins
If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t a part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us. – Hermann Hesse
Every person, all the evens of your life are there because you have drawn them there. What you choose to do with them is up to you. – Donald Shimoda
Inquiry
Etymology: alteration of Latin inquirere, from in- + querere = to seek to ask about; to search into; to put a question; to make investigation or inquiry
The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance – it is the illusion of knowledge. – Daniel Boorstin
I don’t know is the first principle. – Shunryu Suzuki
Metaphysics is a questioning in which we inquire into beings as a whole, and inquire in such a way that in so doing we ourselves, the questioners, are thereby also included in the question, placed into question. – Martin Heidegger
Inquiry is a dynamic functioning of our consciousness, of our soul, that has to be flexible, responsive, and playful for it to be truly intelligent. It has to be inspired by intelligence and informed by understanding. As you inquire, you need to use your intelligence, and you need to apply whatever understanding you have to the experience of the moment. Inquiry is not a matter of asking a question haphazardly; all questions have to be asked in an organic way. That is what the intelligence is: an organic and appropriate responsiveness to each situation. – A. H. Almaas, Spacecruiser Inquiry