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The first koan do not have rational answers. They are techniques devised over the millennia for triggering an actual experience.

Huston Smith

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Huston Smith
Age: 97 †
Born: 1919
Born: May 31
Died: 2016
Died: December 30
Philosopher
Professor
Soochow
Huston Cummings Smith
Firsts
Millennia
First
Devised
Techniques
Actual
Rational
Technique
Answers
Koan
Experience
Triggering

More quotes by Huston Smith

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First of all, my persuasion is what really breeds violence is political differences. But because religion serves as the soul of community, it gets drawn into the fracas and turns up the heat.
Huston Smith
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Walnuts have a shell, and they have a kernel. Religions are the same. They have an essence, but then they have a protective coating. This is not the only way to put it. But it's my way. So the kernels are the same. However, the shells are different.
Huston Smith
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As known unknowns become known unknown unknowns proliferate the larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder.
Huston Smith
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It would be good if we bore one another's burdens.
Huston Smith
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Science can prove nothing about God, because God lies outside its province.
Huston Smith
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Exclusively oral cultures are unencumbered by dead knowledge, dead facts. Libraries, on the other hand, are full of them.
Huston Smith
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We become compassionate not from altruism which denies the self for the sake of the other, but from the insight that sees and feels one is the other.
Huston Smith
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Every society and religion has rules, for both have moral laws. And the essence of morality consists, as in art, of drawing the line somewhere.
Huston Smith
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God has to speak to each person in their own language, in their own idioms. Take Spanish, Chinese. You can express the same thought, but to different people you have to use a different language. Its the same in religion.
Huston Smith
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I would not say that ethical behavior is not possible for the atheist or agnostic. It is. A couple of pretty good examples are Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre. However, I will have to say that if we take the human lot as a whole, these two men must be seen as exceptions.
Huston Smith
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Swallow your pride and admit that we all need help at times.
Huston Smith
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Practice giving things away, not just things you don't care about, but things you do like.
Huston Smith
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The goal of spiritual life is not altered states, but altered traits
Huston Smith
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Imagine a man besottedly in love: he won't waste time speculating whether other women equally merit his affection.
Huston Smith
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The faith I was born into formed me.
Huston Smith
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We all carry it within us: supreme strength, the fullness of wisdom, unquenchable joy. It is never thwarted, and cannot be destroyed.
Huston Smith
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I am profoundly moved and persuaded by the near-death experience.
Huston Smith
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When there are miles to go before we sleep, altered traits are more important than altered states.
Huston Smith
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So always, if we look back, concern for face-to-face morality, and its modern emphasis on justice as well, have historically evolved as religious issues.
Huston Smith
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I think it matters almost infinitely that we practice one of the authentic religions. But if you mean does it make any difference which. The answer is no, as long as each is followed with equal intensity, sincerity, dedication.
Huston Smith