Embrace suffering, and you transform your relationship with what causes you to suffer, as well as your relationship with suffering itself.
It is good to remember that the goal of Buddhism is to create Buddhas, not Buddhists, as the goal of Christianity is to create Christs, not Christians. In the same vein, my teachings are not meant to acquire followers or imitators, but to awaken beings to eternal truth and thus to awakened life and living.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the importance of personal awakening over merely adhering to teachings or labels.
Adyashanti's quote reflects the essence of spiritual paths in various traditions, advocating for personal experience and awakening rather than simply following doctrines or becoming aligned with a particular group. It suggests that the ultimate goal is to realize one's true nature and attain a state of enlightenment, akin to how Buddhism seeks to create Buddhas and Christianity seeks to create Christs, highlighting the importance of individual transformation over mere identification with religious labels.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about personal growth and spirituality.
More from Adyashanti
All quotes →If we do not live and manifest in our lives what we realize in our deepest moments of revelation, then we are living a split life.
Awareness isn’t something we own; awareness isn’t something we possess. Awareness is actually what we are.
The willingness to not bypass illusion is very important. We come to nirvana by way of samsara. We come to see the true nature of things by seeing through the illusory nature of things. We don't come to nirvana by avoiding samsara. We don't come to clarity by avoiding confusion.
Our illusions-the beliefs we hold on to-are the very doorways to our freedom. We simply have to enter through them without grasping or pushing away. We must not believe them, but we must not run away from them either. We need to see each moment of apparent bondage as an invitation to freedom. Then it becomes an act of love, an act of compassion, to stop running away.
Let go of all ideas and images in your mind, they come and go and aren’t even generated by you. So why pay so much attention to your imagination when reality is for the realizing right now?
Similar quotes
Winning gives birth to hostility Losing, one lies down in pain. The calmed lie down with ease, having set winning and losing aside.
I stand four-square for reason, and object to what seems to me to be irrationality, whatever the source. If you are on my side in this, I must warn you that the army of the night has the advantage of overwhelming numbers, and, by its very nature, is immune to reason, so that it is entirely unlikely that you and I can win out. We will always remain a tiny and probably hopeless minority, but let us never tire of presenting our view, and of fighting the good fight for the right.
Heaven cannot but be high. Earth cannot but be broad. The sun and moon cannot but revolve. All creation cannot but flourish. To do so is their TAO. But it is not from extensive study that this may be known, nor by dialectical skill that his may be made clear. The true sage will have none of these.
People get used to anything. The less you think about your oppression, the more your tolerance for it grows. After a while, people just think oppression is the normal state of things. But to become free, you have to be acutely aware of being a slave.
Men are conservatives when they are least vigorous or when they are most luxurious-they are conservatives after dinner.
To destroy a man is difficult, almost as difficult as to create one: it has not been easy, nor quick, but you Germans have succeeded. Here we are, docile under your gaze; from our side you have nothing more to fear; no acts of violence, no words of defiance, not even a look of judgment.