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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.

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
Life
Pain
Hurts
People
Running
Situations
Give
Avoid
Whole
Tend
Giving
Objects
Displeases
Trying
Hurt
Pursuing
Think
Situation
Noticing
Thinking
Pleasure
Avoiding

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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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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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Life is a second-by-second miracle.
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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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You cannot avoid paradise. You can only avoid seeking it.
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We are just living this moment we don't have to live 150,000 moments at once. We are only living one. That's why I say you might as well practice with each moment.
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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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Meditation is not about doing something
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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.
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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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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.
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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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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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There is no end to the opening up that is possible for a human being.
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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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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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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.
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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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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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