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The better teachers recognize that by freeing yourself of the rigid ego identity habit, you actually strengthen the resilient, flexible, creative ego, and you then can be more effective in helping others, and creative in whatever work you do.

Robert Thurman

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Robert Thurman
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: August 4
Curator
Exhibition Curator
Translator
University Teacher
Writer
New York City
New York
Robert Alexander Farrar Thurman
Creative
Flexible
Whatever
Ego
Actually
Teachers
Helping
Effective
Others
Recognize
Freeing
Better
Identity
Resilient
Work
Habit
Rigid
Teacher
Strengthen

More quotes by Robert Thurman

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Struggling with the world and having the problem of you vs. the world is a really big problem. You're going to lose because the world is so much bigger than you, and longer lasting.
Robert Thurman
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Take the example of people who are being most unrealistic - people who are beating monks to death and torturing them. Why shouldn't you be angry or hate that person? Well, the person who is doing that is very unhappy. They are being ordered by a higher-up.
Robert Thurman
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Hate poisons your life.
Robert Thurman
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If your enemy is happy, then why would they be bothered to be your enemy? Being someone's enemy is no fun. It does not add to happiness.
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Actually there's a very bad trend in some cults about how Guru's are supposed to be mean to their students, and there are some who revel in this and are abusive.
Robert Thurman
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The Buddhists think that, because we've all had infinite previous lives, we've all been each other's relatives. Therefore all of you, in the Buddhist view, in some previous life ... have been my mother - for which I do apologize for the trouble I caused you.
Robert Thurman
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Everyone has the same life purpose, which is the quest of happiness for oneself and for others.
Robert Thurman
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You should never be ashamed of the suffering you've been through.
Robert Thurman
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What makes me fully alive is anything. Really just being alive is enough.
Robert Thurman
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You have to be responsible for yourself, refer to yourself, develop yourself, help others, whatever it may be. So we shouldn't have an idea that the whole thing is to shatter ones ego.
Robert Thurman
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The most important enemy for everyone is their own illusion that makes them unrealistic or exaggerates their sense of self-importance in the world. Ironically, you're the super secret enemy. Whether lay or householder, everyone has that internal enemy.
Robert Thurman
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A lot of people, after seeking a bit, have some experience, and sometimes will believe they're enlightened. One has to be careful about that. Especially Americans, who are very external stimulus oriented. When they have some type of deep inner experience, often they think that was the ultimate experience.
Robert Thurman
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I think about the trends at the moment in the planet and how it looks for my grandchildren. I don't panic over it, even though rationally maybe I should. I have faith that these terrible trends will change, and they will not go to their logical conclusions of climate change, militarism, pollution, overpopulation.
Robert Thurman
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The problem in our society is the ego psychology and conventional wisdom about look out for #1. That conventional wisdom thinks that love your enemy is to some a principle no one can ever live by.
Robert Thurman
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The understanding of it [absolute] is very important as a beginning point. Then you can use meditation, further reasoning, long-term familiarity etc., you can use all kinds of methods to deepen this understanding and to have it counter the instinctual sense of being an absolute you.
Robert Thurman
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They [Chinese] will need a sympathetic intercessor with other people in the world to avoid conflict and create trust, and of course, Dalai Lama would be ideal. In another ten years from now though, he won't have the time to be really effective for them. They're truly wasting their time not using him now.
Robert Thurman
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A possession can't make you happy.
Robert Thurman
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You could then use the dream to learn more about yourself, others, the world, and the nature of life. You can come awake in the matrix and realize you're the one in your own dream. People on the spiritual path can do that, thus they can avoid wasting the whole night, and use it in a developmental, nice way.
Robert Thurman
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I think humans will find their humanity sometime, somehow.
Robert Thurman
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Nonviolence against humans cannot take firm hold in society as long as brutality and violence are practiced toward other animals.
Robert Thurman