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"On a psychological and physiological level, the habits of contraction are often caused by the desire to control or acquire, even to acquire generosity or devotion or emptiness. These are subtle and take time to identify and release. Under this is the desire for self-gain or improvement, to win something or better something. Those intentions are healthy enough up to a point, but to really see and engage what you have in front of you, you have to intend that it gains or wins."
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"To say 'I want to have sex with this person' is to express a desire which is not intellectually directed in the way that 'I want to eradicate poverty in the world' is an intellectually directed desire. Furthernore, the gratification of sexual desire can only ever give temporary satisfaction. Thus as Nagarjuna, the great Indian scholar said: 'When you have an itch, you scratch. But not to itch at all is better than any amount of scratching."

"When animals behave like humans or when humans behave like animals, don't be surprised because in every animal there is a human and in every human there is an animal!"

"Help does not come from anywhere outside - it comes only from within ourselves."

"Express your regrets to the right people and you will be encouraged positively."

"Psychologists suggest that we must reach back at least three generations to look for clues whenever we begin untangling the emotional legacy of any one family's history."

"Negative thoughts about ourselves steals our energy."

"Dwelling on thoughts gives birth to feelings."

"I'm all alone, but I'm not lonely."

"Just like your body naturally responds positively to some foods, your mind naturally responds positively to some thoughts."

"It's easy to like someone from a distance. But when she stopped being this amazing attainable thing or whatever, and started being, like, just a regular girl with a weird relationship with food and frequent crankiness who's kinda bossy, then I had to basically start liking a whole different person."
Explore more quotes by Darrell Calkins

"Virtually everyone defines their identity-or constructs their belief of who they are-through their specific combination of desires and suffering. Or, desires obtained (apparent subjective success at the sacrifice of something else), desires unobtained (suffering), and desires still left as questions (to be obtained or not). And...most of the desires, and the suffering, are themselves by-products of others, established by society and the rules of each sect of society."

"If you are "playing too much or "working too much, you will have a reaction on the other side, which indicates your pace is off, too slow or too fast."

"On an even subtler dimension, clarity, intuitive knowledge and contentment are primarily determined by chemical and hormonal balances in the body and brain. Most of this is entirely manipulable through fairly simple physical exercises that anyone can do."

"We have been trained to feel shame and guilt basically as a means to cause fear and hesitation, to control behavior, or to oppress real freedom and joy. The origins of that are communal fear, jealousy and the desire for power over others. Consequently, many people have the addiction of using shame or guilt simply to avoid possibilities in life, and have, at the same time, a reason to avoid them-if you act spontaneously or feel joy, the result will eventually bring suffering, so you had better watch out, and don't ever forget the past shame and guilt."

"People generally believe that stress is responsible for depletion, but apathy and uninspired systematic repetition are equally responsible. Or rather, systematic repetition produces as much or more stress and anxiety as anything else."

"Appreciation, affection, focus and intention fill up the space of self-reflection, and one loses oneself in the engagement. And what a relief it is when you get there."

"Whether or not one believes in the accelerating dangers of the climate crisis, the end of fossil fuels, or the permanent annihilation of species of plants, insects and animals that essentially cover our ass by maintaining an inconceivably complex environment in which we have the freedom and responsibility to do pretty much whatever we'd like, it's not too difficult to at least perceive the dangers of heightened tensions between cultures that now, for the first time, have the power to annihilate each other or the entire planet."

"You may have noticed that the questions asked are better than the answers given. What do you expect? Perhaps we could submit these answers in a game and see if anyone could figure out what the hell the question was. "Ahh, how to be happy?"

"Mastery of anything is, more than anything else, the transformation of work into play. Giving orders and answers, never making mistakes, and having around you others with the opinion that you are great has nothing at all to do with it. Read carefully: to yearn for, to be compelled by, is being called to play."

"If one follows what is in one's heart (let's leave out mind for the moment), one ends up with what one truly values and loves in life-and one acts accordingly. One's own private indulgent cyclic habitual reactive subjective transitory feelings are, hopefully, not at the head of that list."
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