Robert Thurman Quotes
Enjoy the top 62 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Robert Thurman.
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
“Wisdom is tolerance of cognitive dissonance.”
— Robert Thurman
The saying "no self, no problem" probably comes from Zen. In their cultures, where Buddhism is kind of taken for granted, as well as karma, causality, former and future life, and the possibility for becoming enlightened, then it's safe to skirt the danger of nihilism, which would be, I don't exist because Buddha said I have no self, and therefore I have no problem because I don't exist. That would be a bad misunderstanding. But in those cultures, it would not be as easy to have that understanding as it would be here in the west, where we really are nihilistic.
— Robert Thurman
“Live fully each day to the full ...”
— Robert Thurman
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
— Robert Thurman
“You should never be ashamed of the suffering you've been through.”
— Robert Thurman
“I am daily making myself what I am.”
— Robert Thurman
Commercial interests with their advertising industry do not want people to develop contentment and less greed. Military interests in economic, political, ethnic or nationalist guises, do not want people to develop more tolerance, nonviolence and compassion. And ruling groups in general, in whatever sort of hierarchy do not want the ruled to become too insightful, too independent, too creative on their own, as the danger is that they will become insubordinate, rebellious, and unproductive in their alloted tasks.
— Robert Thurman
More than whether you live or die, it's how you are living or dying that is important.
— Robert Thurman
Greed, the desire to incorporate, is magnified and fed back to produce the pretan realms, just as hate creates the hells.
— Robert Thurman
“I think humans will find their humanity sometime, somehow.”
— Robert Thurman
— Robert Thurman
Enlightenment is not meant to be an object of religious faith. It is an evolutionary goal, something we want to become ...
— Robert Thurman
People in Tibet have an expression. When you reach a certain degree of venerableness and age, and people ask, "How are you?," there is an expression that people use that means, "Just barely not dead." Some people might be frightened by it but I think it's quite funny.
— Robert Thurman
It isn't the meaning of love where you somehow desire that one or you want them or want them to love you.
— Robert Thurman
If you love your enemy, that means you want your enemy to be happy.
— Robert Thurman
I'd like to say is that we shouldn't have an idea that the goal of spiritual practice is to annihilate ones ego, that would be a mistake. In the early years of enlightenment, psychologists were afraid of Hindus and Buddhists meditating because they thought they were going to shatter their egos and then they'd have to wear diapers or something, like they'd lose their toilet training or what have you. They were really afraid of it.
— Robert Thurman
So that's the process of understanding, and through that process, if you have a deep realization of the selflessness in regard to your absolute self, then it releases your relational self to be happily interconnected with everything in a blissful way. Then you yourself have "no problem" in the sense of no suffering. You reach Nirvana.
— Robert Thurman
Therefore, what you do as a spiritual practitioner in this life shapes that. To seek and find this beautiful, continuing existence, where there can be more progress towards Buddha-hood, toward love, and wisdom, and helping all being etc. So that's the great value of it.
— Robert Thurman
If you see really bright lights, or hear really loud noises, go towards them, don't run away from anything. It's like giving someone instructions on how to handle a bear, don't run away from it. Stand up and try to make yourself look as big as possible. Don't give it the signal that it should chase you. And that's the case with the after death visions. Don't go for dark seductive lights, go only for bright lights.
— Robert Thurman
First of all, "no self" doesn't mean there is no self, haha. So the "no problem" is jumped at a little too fast I'm afraid. Especially in American culture where people tend to be materialistic philosophically. I don't mean running to the mall, but philosophically, you see?
— Robert Thurman
Robert Thurman Quotes Pictures
Want to see more pictures of Robert Thurman quotes? Click on image of Robert Thurman quotes to view full size.