Quotes by Stephen Batchelor

Stephen Batchelor

…inner spiritual transformation is just as dependent upon the effect of our economic life upon the world as transformations in the world are dependent upon spiritual re-orientation.

Spiritual

Transformation

World

[Mindfulness] is not concerned with anything transcendent or divine. It serves as an antidote to theism, a cure for sentimental piety, a scalpel for excising the tumor of metaphysical belief. (130)

Belief

Mindfulness

Sentimental

A compassionate heart still feels anger, greed, jealousy, and other such emotions. But it accepts them for what they are with equanimity, and cultivates the strength of mind to let them arise and pass without identifying with or acting upon them.

Greed

Heart

Mind

A secular approach is not a dumbing down, it’s not reductively identifying Buddhism with one or two particular techniques of meditation, but it is actually a complete world view and way of life in this world.

Buddhism

Two

Views

Agnosticism is no excuse for indecision. If anything, it is a catalyst for action; for in shifting concern away from a future life and back to the present, it demands an ethics of empathy rather than a metaphysics of fear and hope.

Demand

Empathy

Shifting

As for the law of moral causation (‘karma’): this is human justice dressed up as cosmic justice and then imputed to the impersonal workings of the natural world.

Justice

Karma

Law

Awakening is not a state but a process: an ethical way of life and commitment that enables human flourishing. As such, it is no longer the exclusive preserve of enlightened teachers or accomplished yogis. Likewise, nirvana-the stopping of craving-is not the goal of the path but its very source. For human flourishing first stirs in that clear, bright, empty space where neurotic self-centredness realizes that it has no ground at all to stand on. One is then freed to pour forth like sunlight.

Commitment

Self

Teacher

Awakening is the purpose that enfolds all purposes.

Awakening

Purpose

Buddhism, I think, is probably facing the single most difficult transition from one historical epoch to another, which is really the transition to modernity.

Buddhism

Historical

Thinking

Consciousness is an emergent, contingent, and impermanent phenomenon. It has no magical capacity to break free from the field of events out of which it springs.

Events

Fields

Spring

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Acceptance

Accepting

Air

Anxiety

Appreciate

Art

Artist

Assuming

Atheism

Atheist

Awakening

Belief

Believe

Body

Brain

Buddhism

Buddhist

Cake

Challenges

Civilization

Commitment

Compassion

Degrees

Demand

Details Of Life

Discourse

Doctors

Effort

Embrace

Empathy

Erotic

Events

Everyday

Expectations

Eye

Failing

Feelings

Fields

Flaws

Flesh

Frustration

Fundamentals

Gains

Goal

Granted

Greed

Habit

Heart

Historical

Ideas

The Future Blueprint

Tool

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

Tool

The Autobiography

Tool

The Behaviour Diary

Tool

The Dating Diary

Tool

The Relationship Therapist

Tool

Quotes by Stephen Batchelor

Stephen Batchelor

…inner spiritual transformation is just as dependent upon the effect of our economic life upon the world as transformations in the world are dependent upon spiritual re-orientation.

[Mindfulness] is not concerned with anything transcendent or divine. It serves as an antidote to theism, a cure for sentimental piety, a scalpel for excising the tumor of metaphysical belief. (130)

A compassionate heart still feels anger, greed, jealousy, and other such emotions. But it accepts them for what they are with equanimity, and cultivates the strength of mind to let them arise and pass without identifying with or acting upon them.

A secular approach is not a dumbing down, it’s not reductively identifying Buddhism with one or two particular techniques of meditation, but it is actually a complete world view and way of life in this world.

Agnosticism is no excuse for indecision. If anything, it is a catalyst for action; for in shifting concern away from a future life and back to the present, it demands an ethics of empathy rather than a metaphysics of fear and hope.

As for the law of moral causation (‘karma’): this is human justice dressed up as cosmic justice and then imputed to the impersonal workings of the natural world.

Awakening is the purpose that enfolds all purposes.

Buddhism, I think, is probably facing the single most difficult transition from one historical epoch to another, which is really the transition to modernity.

Consciousness is an emergent, contingent, and impermanent phenomenon. It has no magical capacity to break free from the field of events out of which it springs.

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