Stephen Mitchell (translator) Quotes

5 Sourced Quotes

What people love about life is its miraculous beauty; what they hate about death is the loss and decay around it. Yet losing is not losing, and decay turns into beauty, as beauty turns back into decay. We are breathed in, breathed out. Therefore all you need is to understand the one breath that makes up the world.

Stephen Mitchell

If you listen to the traffic with a clear mind, without any concepts, it is not noisy, it is only what it is.

Stephen Mitchell

In a cookie factory, different cookies are baked in the shape of animals, cars, people, and airplanes. They all have different names and forms, but they are all made from the same dough, and they all taste the same.

Stephen Mitchell

So actions themselves are not good and not bad; only the intention is important.

Stephen Mitchell

What is the gospel according to Jesus? Simply this: that the love we all long for in our innermost heart is already present, beyond longing.

Stephen Mitchell