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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.

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
Faces
Needs
Fact
Learn
Pain
Running
Searing
Facts
Transform
Rest
Power
Face
Need

More quotes by Joko Beck

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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.
Joko Beck
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Life always gives us exactly the teacher we need at every moment. This includes every mosquito, every misfortune, every red light, every traffic jam, every obnoxious supervisor (or employee), every illness, every loss, every moment of joy or depression, every addiction, every piece of garbage, every breath. Every moment is the guru.
Joko Beck
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Life is a second-by-second miracle.
Joko Beck
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Enlightenment is not something you achieve. It is the absence of something. All your life you have been going forward after something, pursuing some goal. Enlightenment is dropping all that.
Joko Beck
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There is no end to the opening up that is possible for a human being.
Joko Beck
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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.
Joko Beck
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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.
Joko Beck
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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.
Joko Beck
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All I can be is who I am right now I can experience that and work with it. That's all I can do. The rest is the dream of the ego.
Joko Beck
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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.
Joko Beck
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You cannot avoid paradise. You can only avoid seeking it.
Joko Beck
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Meditation is not about doing something
Joko Beck
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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.
Joko Beck
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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.
Joko Beck
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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.
Joko Beck
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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.
Joko Beck
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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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Meditation practice is simply moving from a life of hurting myself and others to a life of not hurting myself and others.
Joko Beck
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Joy is being willing for things to be as they are.
Joko Beck
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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.
Joko Beck