Shinzen Young Quotes
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Quotes by Shinzen Young.
Just Note Gone directs you to the Source. Do Nothing directs the Source to you.
— Five Ways to Know Yourself (ver. 1.6), p. 44
If Do Nothing makes you too spacey, try Noting for a while.
If Noting makes you too racy, try Do Nothing for a while.
If Noting makes you too racy, try Do Nothing for a while.
— Five Ways to Know Yourself (ver. 1.6), p. 42
All Gones are uncreated equal.
— Vanishings and Noting Gone, 4m16s
The True Witness is contentless consciousness that in my system you directly eyeball for just a brief second every time you observe a phenomenon disappearing.
— The Absolute Witness, 3m48s
The Absolute Witness punctures the time-space continuum thousands and thousands and thousands of times everyday for everyone. The only difference between the so called "enlightened people" and everybody else is they notice it and they know that they are that Nothing.
— The Absolute Witness, 6m19s
If you actually experience sharing the Zero Womb [with others], then from that comes a sense of wanting to serve, to be of service to the larger identity.
— The "Final Stage" and Service, 8m15s
Teachers can't avoid making bad karma.
— Mt. Carmel Talk, 22s
In Vipassana you observe impermanence and if you do that long enough it start to inform the way your body moves and you ride on impermanence. In Zen, long before you actually see impermanence, you're forced [by the practice] to ride on impermanence and then eventually you see impermanence. But in the end, you want to come to both: you want to be able to see impermanence and to ride on impermanence.
— Mt. Carmel Talk, 7m57s
Since my primary mission is to create a truly rigorous formulation, just from my own personal perspective I'm duty-bound to present what I think is the most precise scientific theory of what's actually going on. [It] may not be the simplest one to teach to the masses, but unless we have a really deep and broad and subtle theoretical understanding, I think in the end we won't be able to teach effectively. I would prefer to teach the deeper, broader formulation (even though people don't quite get it right away) because I want the dialogue to progress through time – I want our scientific understanding to be able to evolve.
— My Primary Mission, 0s
Maybe if we had a really deep model of enlightenment, we'd be able to churn out arahants with consistency.
— Classical Enlightenment: Healing the World and Screw-ups, 2m3s
Is Buddhist meditation compatible with other religions? Not only is it compatible with any belief system or lack of belief system, it's compatible with a rationalist, humanist, skeptical point of view, and I would say it's compatible with any religion that I know of, including the more fundamentalist forms of religion, believe it or not.
— Is Buddhist meditation compatible with other religions?, 0s
You don't have to buy the whole package; take what works for you.
— Is Buddhist meditation compatible with other religions?, 5m34s
If we take the core practice of early Buddhism and define it in terms of concentration, clarity, equanimity and positive behaviour changes associated with those, then that's compatible everywhere. It is possible to be a fundamentalist Christian and be profoundly influenced by Buddhist practice.
— Is Buddhist meditation compatible with other religions?, 7m8s
I'm not much of a wine connoisseur for a number of reasons, but I have sort of become an affective somaesthesia connoisseur.
— Using "Turn Towards" w. Feel, Image, & Talk Challenges - 2 of 2, 26s
Meditation starts with a straight back and ends with compassion.
— From a 2006 C.O.D. Ranch retreat, as remembered by Pez Owen. "My first ever retreat. I'm not sure I've heard him say it since, but I say it all the time."
Suffering = Discomfort × Resistance
Purification = Discomfort × Equanimity
Purification = Discomfort × Equanimity
— Purification and Fulfilment: Four Formulas, 0s
Frustration = Pleasure × Resistance
Fulfilment = Pleasure × Equanimity
Fulfilment = Pleasure × Equanimity
— Purification and Fulfilment: Four Formulas, 0s
You have to become infinitely vulnerable before you become absolutely invulnerable in a healthy way.
— Where the Path Leads (Retreat Q&A), 43:20
Once you begin to have mystical experiences, you can feel right at home in anybody’s church.
— The Science of Enlightenment (2016), Chapter 3, At Home in Anybody’s Church
If you read the standard histories of Buddhism, they will usually say that the Buddha rejected asceticism. However, I wouldn't exactly say that. I would say rather that the Buddha refined asceticism, conceptually and practically.
You read the book, now you gonna have to live the movie.
— Experiences of the Dissolution (Bhanga) Process - Part 1 of 3, 3m24s
Clarity helps us to detect and discriminate qualities, intensities, and spatial patterns in what we see, hear, and feel. It gives us the ability to analyze our sensorium in terms of:
- how much,
- of what,
- where,
- when,
- interacting in what ways, and
- changing at what rate.
— The Science of Enlightenment (2016), Chapter 5, The Feeling Body
Which technique would I pick as the quickest path to enlightenment? It’s a difficult choice, but I think it would be the technique I call Just Note Gone.
— The Science of Enlightenment (2016), Chapter 9
Infusing concentration, clarity, and equanimity into an experience functions like a catalyst facilitating a natural process of insight and purification that is just waiting to happen. Thus, the Fundamental Theorem of Mindfulness is:
Concentration + Sensory clarity + Equanimity + Time = Insight + Purification
— The Science of Enlightenment (2016), Chapter 5, The Basic Model
If you can't be disciplined, be clever!
— How to Echo Talk, p. 1
Let visual, auditory, or somatic experience come and go. Let things activate or become restful as they wish. Let things coagulate or flow as they wish.
— What is Mindfulness? (ver. 1.5), p. 26, Non-Judgment 2: Equanimity
As soon as something wants to arise, let it. As long as something wants to last, let it. As soon as something wants to pass, let it.
— What is Mindfulness? (ver. 1.5), p. 26, Non-Judgment 2: Equanimity
You may create equanimity in your body by intentionally relaxing your body or create equanimity in your mind by letting go of judging thoughts.
— What is Mindfulness? (ver. 1.5), p. 26, Non-Judgment 2: Equanimity
Be sure to notice spontaneous equanimity should it occur. If you spontaneously fall into equanimity, notice that discomfort now causes you less suffering and that pleasure now gives you more fulfillment.
— What is Mindfulness? (ver. 1.5), p. 26, Non-Judgment 2: Equanimity
Body is just coagulated spirit.
— Natural Pain Relief, p. 9, What to Do If Meditating on the Pain Makes It Worse
If we look carefully enough and patiently enough, any experience will show us its impermanence. That is important and useful, because impermanence can turbocharge our spiritual growth.
— The Science of Enlightenment (2016), Chapter 6, Masks of Impermanence
The mystic is anyone who is willing to experience purgatory in this life. The reward is a direct and abiding glimpse of heaven in this life.
— The Science of Enlightenment (2016), Chapter 10, More about Dissolution
If you are manifesting positive emotional body sensations, positive mental images, and positive mental talk, I don't know if it will necessarily turn you into a money magnet, but it will turn you into a people magnet.
— Five Aspects of the Five Ways - 4 of 4, 4m21s
There are Five Axioms (or Five Basic Assumption) that underlie mindfulness as I would teach it, that – when implemented – lead to not logical conclusions but to experiential developments within a person:
- Concentration: it is better to have the ability to focus on what one deems relevant and whenever one wants than to lack that ability.
- Sensory clarity: it is better to be sensorially clear about what's going on than to be sensorially muddled.
- Equanimity: it is good to be able to not fight with yourself.
- Recycle the reaction: if, as the result of applying the first three axioms, one experiences heavenly, hellish, or bizarre phenomena, then simply reapply to these reactions the first three axioms.
- If you forget the first four axioms, have contact information of a competent guide, call them, and they will remind you of the first four axioms.
— Five Basic Assumptions in Mindfulness Practice, 0s
Thought is definitely not the enemy. Your enemy is the lack of moment-to-moment clarity about rising and passing of thought. Thought is every bit as much part of the flow of nature as body sensations are. Indeed, your entire being is part of nature!
— Meditation and Consciousness, p. 6
There are two sides to the path, and it's paradoxical: there's a place for bearing down, there's a place for easing up; there's a place for doing something, and there's a place for not doing anything at all. So there is a kind of dialectic. Even the Buddha talked about that a lot, about tightening the strings of a lute – you don’t make it too tight, you don’t make it too loose. A teacher can help you with that dialectic.
If you're developing a dependence on your teacher, then you want to take measure to militate against that, because the name of game on the spiritual path is happiness independent of conditions. Your spiritual path is not a path of dependence on the teacher.
A competent Liberation teacher does not want students; a competent Liberation teacher wants colleagues – peers, people that are independent and free of any sort of investment with the individual teacher.
— Teacher's or Student's Issues Impeding Spiritual Progress?, 1m20s
Sometimes people ask me, "Oh, Shinzen, you've given me so much, what can I do to repay you?", and the impish side in me just blurts out, "Forget about me – that's the biggest favor you can do – forget I ever existed. Just take what you have learned, take the principles, take the skill set and run with it on your own."
— Teacher's or Student's Issues Impeding Spiritual Progress?, 1m52s
There's actually only one teacher in the universe throughout all time and space, and it's not a person, it's a doing. All the individual teachers are just reflections of that one teacher activity.
— Teacher's or Student's Issues Impeding Spiritual Progress?, 2m26s
Dependency on a teacher can impede your progress.
— Teacher's or Student's Issues Impeding Spiritual Progress?, 3m27s
When you bring a certain critical mass of concentration, clarity, and equanimity to an ordinary experience, it becomes utterly extraordinary. When you bring an extraordinary degree of concentration, clarity, and equanimity to an extraordinary experience – like a god manifesting fully in front of you – that experience becomes utterly ordinary. That's the Path of Liberation, as opposed to the Path of Powers.
— Zero and One - Part 1, 8m54s
Subtle is significant. Very wispy, subtle, emotionally colored body sensations can have an enormous effect – a distorting effect – on people's perception and behavior.
— 6 Buddhist Consciousnesses & the 12 Sensory States, 3m42s
There are no absolutes in meditation. One just feels one's way.
— Meditation and Consciousness, p. 7
The thinking process is driven by subliminal feelings, subtle pleasures and pains that we are not ordinarily aware of. When we clear away the ignorance surrounding the thinking process, we are able to detect the subtle "flavors" of pleasure that seduce us into thinking, as well as the subtle flavors of discomfort that goad us into thinking. The unconsciousness and grasping around these feelings turn the feelings into "driver sensations" which mercilessly agitate the mind. When these sensations can be detected and experienced with equanimity, the addiction to the thinking process comes to an end. The mind still thinks, but not in a driven way. It begins to function in a spiritually intuitive mode. In other words, it dines on reality as opposed to trying to gobble it up.
— Meditation and Consciousness, p. 6
You have the best shot at it if you establish what I call the four pillars of practice. What that means is you do some day-to-day practice, every once in a while you do retreat practice, and you get support and give support.
If [people] want to do a sort of gushy loving-kindness – that's fine; if they want to do a New Agey magical thinking – that's fine; if they want to do a cold, rational cognitive reframing – that's fine too; if they want to merge with an archetype – hey, that's fine too. However you want to do it, just do it, but understand that in doing that, you are actually doing a kind of mindfulness practice.
There is the no-self experience that comes through just purely disentangling; then there's the no-self experience that comes through decoagulating the elements that you've disentangled; then there's the no-self experience that comes about when those flows stop and there is Zero – that's a kind of absolute no-self experience. And then, I would say that the highest freedom comes about when you can experience from that Zero the Feel, Image, Talk rearising, and you totally allow it to rearise as an unblocked activity of personality.
[With regard to concentration,] the growth is not linear – it's somewhat [like a] hockey stick, so that you grow faster as you grow more.
Formal meditation practice subtracts a little bit of time from your life, but it multiplies the richness and depth of the rest of the time. So, as we say, do the math – it's a good deal.
As we bring equanimity to an uncomfortable experience: number one – that experience doesn't cause as much suffering; and number two – that experience delivers a flavor of purification, so that it's possible to get something positive – a taste of purification – even inside discomfort.
The more you bring equanimity to a pleasant experience, the more that experience produces a quality called fulfillment, which is not the same as mere pleasure – fulfillment is what we really want, pleasure is what we think we want. So, as you bring equanimity to a pleasant experience, it delivers more fulfillment, and also it delivers the same flavor of purification.
Every meditation teacher should be willing and able to explain to you why they ask you to do things in a certain way.
Expansion is the principle of increase; contraction is the principle of decrease. Expansion is the principle of outward movement, outward force; contraction is the principle of inward movement, inward force. So that means that as you're paying attention to sensory experience, if anything increases – that's expansion. So expansion isn't this mysterious thing that someday, if you finally grow up, you'll be able to experience. If you have a pain and it's getting bigger – that's expansion; if you're listening to a sound and it's getting smaller and smaller and smaller as the airplane goes away – that's contraction. Don't tell me you never experienced expansion or contraction. Any increase, any decrease represents these underlying principles.
The increase and decrease in intensities, and the increase and decrease in frequencies, and the inwards and outward pressures in the body, and the scattering and gripping forces in the mind: in the end, all present themselves – if you look carefully – as stretchings and/or squeezings of a spatial volume of sensory experience.
The fundamental separation of inside and outside is more or less synonymous with fear.
— Ordinary Consciousness is the Way - Part 3 of 3 ~ Shinzen Young, 7m23s
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