Explore Quotes by Stephen Levine

Buddha left a road map, Jesus left a road map, Krishna left a road map, Rand McNally left a road map. But you still have to travel the road yourself

Why do so many of us not give ourselves permission to be alive until we are absolutely assured that we will die? ...If we are not in [this present millisecond of life and conscious experience], we are not alive; we are merely thinking our lives. Yet we have seen so many die, looking back over their shoulders at their lives, shaking their heads and muttering in bewilderment, "What was that all about?"

Nothing is more natural than grief, no emotion more common to our daily experience. It's an innate response to loss in a world where everything is impermanent.

Go to the truth beyond the mind. Love is the bridge.

Gratitude is the state of mind of thankfulness. As it is cultivated, we experience an increase in our "sympathetic joy," our happiness at another's happiness. Just as in the cultivation of compassion, we may feel the pain of others, so we may begin to feel their joy as well. And it doesn't stop there.

The saddest part about being human is not paying attention. Presence is the gift of life.

Hell is not fire and brimstone, not a place where you are punished for lying or cheating or stealing. Hell is wanting to be something and somewhere different from where you are.

Death is just a change in lifestyles.

Meditation allows us to directly participate in our lives instead of living life as an afterthought.

Love is not what we become but who we already are

Much thought has at its root a dissatisfaction with what is. Wanting is the urge for the next moment to contain what this moment does not. When there is wanting in the mind, that moment feels incomplete. Wanting is seeing elsewhere. Completeness is being right here.

If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call to make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?

When your fear touches someone's pain it becomes pity;_x000D__x000D_when your love touches someone's pain, it becomes_x000D__x000D_compassion. To train in compassion, then, is to know_x000D__x000D_all beings are the same and suffer in similar ways,_x000D__x000D_to honor all those who suffer, and to know you are_x000D__x000D_neither separate from nor superior to anyone.

In Chinese, the word for heart and mind is the same -- Hsin. For when the heart is open and the mind is clear they are of one substance, of one essence.

Until we find out who was born this time around, it seems irrelevant to seek earlier identities. I have heard many people speak of who they believe they were in previous incarnations, but they seem to have very little idea of who they are in this one. . . . Let’s take one life at a time. Perhaps the best way to do that is to live as though there were no afterlife or reincarnation. To live as though this moment was all that was allotted. (132)

There is nothing noble about suffering except the love and forgiveness with which we meet it. Many believe that if they are suffering they are closer to God, but I have met very few who could keep their heart open to their suffering enough for that to be true. (124)

That which is impermanent attracts compassion. That which is not provides wisdom. (116)

[D]etachment means letting go and nonattachment means simply letting be. (95)

[D]on’t cling to your self-righteous suffering, let it go. . . . Nothing is too good to be true, let yourself be forgiven. To the degree you insist that you must suffer, you insist on the suffering of others as well. (90)

I have never lived a life so much larger than death. (93)

Letting ourselves be forgiven is one of the most difficult healings we will undertake. And one of the most fruitful. (79)