Quote

The demons aren't the noise. They are our aversion to the noise...when you can accept discomfort, doing so allows a balance of mind. That surrender, that letting go of wanting anything to be other than it is right in the moment, is what frees us from hell.

Stephen Levine

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Stephen Levine
Age: 78 †
Born: 1937
Born: July 17
Died: 2016
Died: January 17
Poet
Screenwriter
the United States of America
Stephan Levine
Hell
Allows
Moment
Wanting
Moments
Surrender
Frees
Anything
Noise
Aversion
Right
Accept
Demons
Mind
Aren
Discomfort
Balance
Demon
Accepting
Letting

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Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me. There is nothing to do but be.
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I have never lived a life so much larger than death. (93)
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Whatever prepares you for death enhances life.
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Much thought has at its root a dissatisfaction with what is. Wanting is the urge for the next moment to contain what this moment does not. When there is wanting in the mind, that moment feels incomplete. Wanting is seeing elsewhere. Completeness is being right here.
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Understanding is the ultimate seduction of the mind. Go to the truth beyond the mind.
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Wanting things to be otherwise is the very essence of suffering. We almost never directly experience what pain is because our reaction to it is so immediate that most of what we call pain is actually our experience of resistance to that phenomenon. And the resistance is usually a good deal more painful than the original sensation.
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When the heart acknowledges how much pain there is in the mind, it turns like a mother toward a frightened child.
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[D]etachment means letting go and nonattachment means simply letting be. (95)
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If you can find the God inside yourself, you can find the God inside everybody.
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It is trust in our vast 'don't know' that allows room for the truth, that allows the next intuition to float to the surface.
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Quoting son, Noah Levine: Once you see what the heart really needs, it doesn’t matter if you’re going to live or die, the work is always the same. (25)
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You can call it wisdom, or sanity, or health, or enlightenment. I use the word God as a short-cut. I am comfortable with the word God because I don't have the foggiest idea of what it means.
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The mind creates the abyss. The heart crosses over it. Love is the bridge.
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Hell is not fire and brimstone, not a place where you are punished for lying or cheating or stealing. Hell is wanting to be something and somewhere different from where you are.
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How soon will we accept this opportunity to be fully alive before we die? (88)
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Death is perfectly safe. (55)
Stephen Levine
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Nothing is more natural than grief, no emotion more common to our daily experience. It's an innate response to loss in a world where everything is impermanent.
Stephen Levine
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We've all been should upon enough.
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In Chinese, the word for heart and mind is the same -- Hsin. For when the heart is open and the mind is clear they are of one substance, of one essence.
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If you want the other person more than anything else in the world, you're in major trouble and the relationship is a wobbly pivot. It's different if the thing you want most in the world is truth, and your partner is the person you want most in the world.
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