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Gradual Awakening: The Tibetan Buddhist Path of Becoming Fully Human QUOTES

Gradual Awakening: The Tibetan Buddhist Path of Becoming Fully Human QUOTES

21 " What you‘re experiencing now is conditioned and determined by your past; what you‘re doing now conditions and determines what you‘ll see in your future. When you can take responsibility for that causal process, you are on the first stage of the hero path. You change your piece of the world by changing your body and mind from that of an ordinary, deluded, sleepwalking, and afflicted human to that of a hero and eventually a Buddha – one who is utterly awake. Then you inspire others, until everyone‘s piece of the world is utterly, collectively transformed. (pp. 88 - 89) "

― Miles Neale , Gradual Awakening: The Tibetan Buddhist Path of Becoming Fully Human

22 " A prayer or chant is a way of creating an imprint in your mind to one day perceive and experience something favorable. It's a way of actively settling aspiration through a process of cultivation and familiarization. What you think you become. "

― Miles Neale , Gradual Awakening: The Tibetan Buddhist Path of Becoming Fully Human

23 " Just as a snake sheds its skin, so too do we relinquish actions, words, and views that compose our current life of misery and longing so we can be reborn as a Bodhisattva Hero, a child of the Buddhas. Are you ready to let go? (p. 97) "

― Miles Neale , Gradual Awakening: The Tibetan Buddhist Path of Becoming Fully Human

24 " In every one of us is a child who hopes myths, mysteries, and dreams can come true. They can, and they have. (p. 7) "

― Miles Neale , Gradual Awakening: The Tibetan Buddhist Path of Becoming Fully Human

25 " The archetype of the hero in Tibetan Buddhism is a Bodhisattva, an evolved being motivated by profound compassion for the suffering of others who vows to reach complete awakening. Bodhisattvas who pursue the Gradual Path follow a succession of training steps through stages of psychological development and reach specific milestones, or realizations, along the way to enlightenment. Both physicists discovering the ultimate nature of reality and poet-activists, Bodhisattvas generate love and compassion as practical and constructive forces to skillfully redesign the matrix of interdependence we all share. "

― Miles Neale , Gradual Awakening: The Tibetan Buddhist Path of Becoming Fully Human

26 " The way we relate to all of phenomena alters when our mind perceives phenomena as a process and expression of flow […] why does it matter? Because we realize we can‘t hold on to processes, just as we can‘t hold a stream of water. We can savor and skillfully work with dynamic things, but we can‘t control or own them. Meditate on this idea; it‘s healing. (p. 174) "

― Miles Neale , Gradual Awakening: The Tibetan Buddhist Path of Becoming Fully Human

27 " Enlightenment is possible - for everyone. "

― Miles Neale , Gradual Awakening: The Tibetan Buddhist Path of Becoming Fully Human

28 " Think about the urgency of death the next time you argue with your partner or you react unskillfully when your teenager talks back to you. It will change your whole perspective on how you live—to know that it will all be gone. All the petty little disagreements, all the tiffs and fights, all the inconsequential pursuits and preoccupations fly out the window when you look at life from this perspective of death and dying. "

― Miles Neale , Gradual Awakening: The Tibetan Buddhist Path of Becoming Fully Human

29 " Refreshed, we rose before sunrise and walked in silence, spontaneously hand in hand, from the monastery, through the darkness, and down a dirt road to the Bodhi tree where the Buddha reached enlightenment. Sitting together in meditation under the branches, dawn broke to the resonance of monks chanting, an endless stream of prayers thousands of years old and echoing through the ages. That was the first time I came to know what the word love meant. The person, the place, and the moment all felt like finding home. It was pure magic. "

― Miles Neale , Gradual Awakening: The Tibetan Buddhist Path of Becoming Fully Human