When you care about perfection, you care about an expectation. But there is also caring for where I am right now, for what’s happening right now.
BERNIE GLASSMANIt’s very rare to be in a state where there’s nothing in, where you have no attachment to any idea or concept about yourself.
More Bernie Glassman Quotes
-
-
When we go… to bear witness to life on the streets, we’re offering ourselves. Not blankets, not food, not clothes, just ourselves.
BERNIE GLASSMAN -
The extraordinary language of Nonviolent Communication is changing how parents relate to children, teachers to students, and how we all related to each other and even to ourselves. It is precise, disciplined, and enormously compassionate.
BERNIE GLASSMAN -
When I spend time with students, they tell me that they’ve read something in a book or heard something from a teacher that they don’t think they’re living up to. And I tell them, “Take care of yourself right now.
BERNIE GLASSMAN -
Even if you’re only rowing down a stream, different things happen: maybe the wind changes, maybe the current, and suddenly everything’s different. So gently is really important.
BERNIE GLASSMAN -
When we don’t ask, we don’t let others give. When we fear rejection, we don’t let generosity arise.
BERNIE GLASSMAN -
Our tendency in life is to avoid things that frighten us. But in order to become whole, we need to go deeper and deeper into ourselves by reaching further and further into the things we fear.
BERNIE GLASSMAN -
The pursuit of enlightenment is for the purpose of the world, not merely for the purpose of the individual. Practices for enlightenment must lead to action in the world.
BERNIE GLASSMAN -
Befriend what’s happening, not just who you’re supposed to be or what the world should be like. This is where you are now. So how do you care for yourself this minute?
BERNIE GLASSMAN -
In that state you’ve immediately raised the mind of compassion, because if nothing is in, everything is in, and you are now free to experience yourself as the world.
BERNIE GLASSMAN -
Don’t make a whole to-do about it. Don’t get down on yourself be- cause you’re not an expert rower; don’t start reading too many books in order to do it right.
BERNIE GLASSMAN -
In every area, working with what you habitually reject is one of the best ways to facilitate growth and transformation.
BERNIE GLASSMAN -
Let me give you a wonderful Zen practice. Wake up in the morning…look in the mirror, and laugh at yourself.
BERNIE GLASSMAN -
I honor businesses for what they do, I honor nonprofits for what they do, I honor government for what it does, and then I invite everyone to the table so that together we can come up with innovative and broad-based solutions that can serve as many people as possible.
BERNIE GLASSMAN -
We’re creating a little niche for ourselves instead of working the whole canvas.
BERNIE GLASSMAN -
When we bear witness, when we become the situation – homelessness, poverty, illness, violence, death – the right action arises by itself. We don’t have to worry about what to do.
BERNIE GLASSMAN