Mark Epstein - Going to pieces without falling apart (1998)

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In building a path through the self to the far shore of awareness, we have to carefully pick our way through our own wilderness. If we can put our minds into a place of surrender, we will have an easier time feeling the contours of the land. We do not have to break our way through as much as we have to find our way around the major obstacles. We do not have to cure every neurosis, we just have to learn how not to be caught by them.

Mark Epstein
As my Buddhist teachers have shown me, wisdom emerges in the space around words as much as from language itself.

Mark Epstein
We are looking for a way to feel more real, but we do not realize that to feel more real we have to push ourselves further into the unknown.

Mark Epstein
When we seek happiness through accumulation, either outside of ourselves-from other people, relationships, or material goods-or from our own self-development, we are missing the essential point. In either case we are trying to find completion. But according to Buddhism, such a strategy is doomed. Completion comes not from adding another piece to ourselves but from surrendering our ideas of perfection.

Mark Epstein
Buddhism teaches us that happiness does not come from any kind of acquisitiveness, be it material or psychological. Happiness comes from letting go. In Buddhism, the impenetrable, separate, and individuated self is more of the problem than the solution.

Mark Epstein
The central premise of this book is that the Western psychological notion of what it means to have a self is flawed.

Mark Epstein