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True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart QUOTES

True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart QUOTES

1 " Stepping out of the busyness, stopping our endless pursuit of getting somewhere else, is perhaps the most beautiful offering we can make to our spirit. "

― Tara Brach , True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart

2 " Each time you meet an old emotional pattern with presence, your awakening to truth can deepen. There’s less identification with the self in the story and more ability to rest in the awareness that is witnessing what’s happening. You become more able to abide in compassion, to remember and trust your true home. Rather than cycling repetitively through old conditioning, you are actually spiraling toward freedom. "

― Tara Brach , True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart

3 " You have a unique body and mind, with a particular history and conditioning. No one can offer you a formula for navigating all situations and all states of mind. Only by listening inwardly in a fresh and open way will you discern at any given time what most serves your healing and freedom. "

― Tara Brach , True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart

4 " Awakening self-compassion is often the greatest challenge people face on the spiritual path. "

― Tara Brach , True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart

5 " The intimacy that arises in listening and speaking truth is only possible if we can open to the vulnerability of our own hearts. Breathing in, contacting the life that is right here, is our first step. Once we have held ourselves with kindness, we can touch others in a vital and healing way. "

― Tara Brach , True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart

6 " The great gift of a spiritual path is coming to trust that you can find a way to true refuge. You realize that you can start right where you are, in the midst of your life, and find peace in any circumstance. Even at those moments when the ground shakes terribly beneath you—when there’s a loss that will alter your life forever—you can still trust that you will find your way home. This is possible because you’ve touched the timeless love and awareness that are intrinsic to who you are. "

― Tara Brach , True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart

7 " Like investigation, healthy doubt arises from the urge to know what is true--it challenges assumptions or the status quo in service of healing and freedom. In contrast, unhealthy doubt arises from fear or aversion, and it questions one's own basic potential or worth, or the value of another. "

― Tara Brach , True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart

8 " Suffering is our call to attention, our call to investigate the truth of our beliefs. "

― Tara Brach , True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart

9 " In the Lakota/Sioux tradition, a person who is grieving is considered most wakan, most holy. There's a sense that when someone is struck by the sudden lightning of loss, he or she stands on the threshold of the spirit world. The prayers of those who grieve are considered especially strong, and it is proper to ask them for their help.
You might recall what it's like to be with someone who has grieved deeply. The person has no layer of protection, nothing left to defend. The mystery is looking out through that person's eyes. For the time being, he or she has accepted the reality of loss and has stopped clinging to the past or grasping at the future. In the groundless openness of sorrow, there is a wholeness of presence and a deep natural wisdom. "

― Tara Brach , True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart

10 " We can’t understand the nature of reality until we let go of controlling our experience. "

― Tara Brach , True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart

11 " Whatever you think or do regularly becomes a habit, a strongly conditioned pathway in the brain. The more you think about what can go wrong, the more your mind is primed to anticipate trouble. The more you lash out in anger, the more your body and mind are geared toward aggression. The more you think about how you might help others, the more your mind and heart are inclined to be generous. Just as weight lifting builds muscles, the way you direct your attention can strengthen anxiety, hostility, and addiction, or it can lead you to healing and awakening. "

― Tara Brach , True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart

12 " Perfection is not a prerequisite for anything but pain. "

― Tara Brach , True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart

13 " I take refuge in awareness; I take refuge in truth; I take refuge in love "

― Tara Brach , True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart

14 " Mindfulness is the intentional process of paying attention, without judgment, to the unfolding of moment-by-moment experience. "

― Tara Brach , True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart

15 " May I be filled with lovingkindness; may I be held in lovingkindness.
May I feel safe and at ease.
May I feel protected from inner and outer harm.
May I be happy.
May I accept myself just as I am.
May I touch deep, natural peace.
May I know the natural joy of being alive.
May I find true refuge within my own being.
May my heart and mind awaken; may I be free. "

― Tara Brach , True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart

16 " The biggest illusion about a path of refuge is that we are on our way somewhere else, on our way to becoming a different kind of person. But ultimately, our refuge is not outside ourselves, not somewhere in the future - it is always and already here. "

― Tara Brach , True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart

17 " We find true refuge whenever we recognize the silent space of awareness behind all our busy doing and striving. We find refuge whenever our hearts open with tenderness and love. We find refuge whenever we connect with the innate clarity and intelligence of our true nature. "

― Tara Brach , True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart

18 " ...other people want to feel important and loved. Just that. [author's patient, Phil] "

― Tara Brach , True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart

19 " When we disconnect from the body, we are pulling away from the energetic expression of our being that connects us with all of life. By imagining a great tree uprooted from earth, we can sense the unnaturalness, violence, and suffering of this severed belonging. The experience of being uprooted is a kind of dying. "

― Tara Brach , True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart

20 " Mindfulness is the intentional process of paying attention, without judgment, to the unfolding "

― Tara Brach , True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart