Quote

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

Huston Smith

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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

Image
We all carry it within us: supreme strength, the fullness of wisdom, unquenchable joy. It is never thwarted, and cannot be destroyed.
Huston Smith
Image
The crisis that the world finds itself in as it swings on the hinge of a new millennium is located in something deeper than particular ways of organizing political systems and economies.
Huston Smith
Image
I simply wanted to experience the presence of this man who had revolutionized my understanding. After a while we sat in silence, gazing at the barren canyon walls. And the mute desert seemed to carry on our conversation for us.
Huston Smith
Image
It has been estimated that one third of our Western civilization bears the mark of its Jewish ancestry.
Huston Smith
Image
Most of the book deals with things we already know yet never learn.
Huston Smith
Image
I have a body and I have a soul. And my body belongs to the faith - in fact, the church - into which it was born, the Methodist Church.
Huston Smith
Image
...but with my clamoring ego solidly in place, I considered the title, 'Memories of a Failed Nobody'.
Huston Smith
Image
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
Image
It would be good if we bore one another's burdens.
Huston Smith
Image
Human intelligence is a reflection of the intelligence that produces everything. In knowing, we are simply extending the intelligence that comes to and constitutes us. We mimic the mind of God, so to speak. Or better, we continue and extend it.
Huston Smith
Image
Science can prove nothing about God, because God lies outside its province.
Huston Smith
Image
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
Image
As known unknowns become known unknown unknowns proliferate the larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder.
Huston Smith
Image
Swami Ashokananda was a brilliant and accomplished spiritual teacher in the West.
Huston Smith
Image
...the only thing that continues is the consequences of our action.
Huston Smith
Image
In nature, the emphasis is in what is rather than what ought to be.
Huston Smith
Image
Imagine a man besottedly in love: he won't waste time speculating whether other women equally merit his affection.
Huston Smith
Image
Institutions are not pretty. Show me a pretty government. Healing is wonderful, but the American Medical Association? Learning is wonderful, but universities? The same is true for religion... religion is institutionalized spirituality.
Huston Smith
Image
My body was born into the - baptized in the Methodist church, and it will be buried in the Methodist Church. Meanwhile, I have a soul. And my soul cannot be confined to any human institution.
Huston Smith
Image
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