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Body tension will always be present if our good feeing is just ordinary, self-centered happiness. Joy has no tension in it, because joy accepts whatever is as it is.

Joko Beck

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Joko Beck
Age: 94 †
Born: 1917
Born: March 27
Died: 2011
Died: June 15
Author
Writer
New Jersey
United States
Charlotte Joko Beck
Whatever
Happiness
Accepts
Body
Centered
Self
Tension
Good
Ordinary
Always
Accepting
Joy
Present

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Whenever we say a person's name, notice whether we have stated more than a fact. For example, the judgment, 'She's thoughtless' goes beyond the facts 'She said she'd call me and she didn't.
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We learn in our guts, not just in our brain, that a life of joy is not in seeking happiness, but in experiencing and simply being the circumstances of our life as they are not in fulfilling personal wants, but in fulfilling the needs of life.
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But opinions, judgments, memories, dreaming about the future—ninety percent of the thoughts spinning around in our heads have no essential reality.
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Joy is being willing for things to be as they are.
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There is one thing in life that you can always rely on: life being as it is.
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Meditation is not about doing something
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You cannot avoid paradise. You can only avoid seeking it.
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To some degree we all find life difficult, perplexing, and oppressive. Even when it goes well, as it may for a time, we worry that it probably won't keep on that way.
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We 'rid ourselves of conceptual thought' when, by persistent observation, we recognize the unreality of our self-centered thoughts. Then we can remain dispassionate and fundamentally unaffected by them. That does not mean to be a cold person. Rather, it means not to be caught and dragged around by circumstances.
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It's of no use to look back and say, I should have been different. At any given moment, we are the way we are, and we see what we're able to see. For that reason, guilt is always inappropriate.
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There is no end to the opening up that is possible for a human being.
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We're constantly waking up to what we're about, what we're really doing in our lives. And the fact is, that's painful. But there's no possibility of freedom without this pain.
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With unfailing kindness, your life always presents what you need to learn. Whether you stay home or work in an office or whatever, the next teacher is going to pop right up.
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Underneath our nice, friendly facades there is great unease. If I were to scratch below the surface of anyone I would find fear, pain, and anxiety running amok. We all have ways to cover them up. We overeat, over-drink, overwork we watch too much television.
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We have to face the pain we have been running from. In fact, we need to learn to rest in it and let its searing power transform us.
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Meditation practice is simply moving from a life of hurting myself and others to a life of not hurting myself and others.
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We have self-centered minds which get us into plenty of trouble. If we do not come to understand the error in the way we think, our self-awareness, which is our greatest blessing, is also our downfall.
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We are always doing something to cover up our basic existential anxiety. Some people live that way until the day they die.
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We tend to run our whole life trying to avoid all that hurts or displeases us, noticing the objects, people, or situations that we think will give us pain or pleasure, avoiding one and pursuing the other.
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Practice has to be a process of endless disappointment. We have to see that everything we demand (and even get) eventually disappoints us. This discovery is our teacher.
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