Howard Cutler famous quotes

To diminish the suffering of pain, we need to make a crucial distinction between the pain of pain, and the pain we create by our thoughts about the pain. Fear, anger, guilt, loneliness and helplessness are all mental and emotional responses that can intensify pain.
-- Howard Cutler

#Pain #Loneliness #Buddhism

There is no getting around these essential ingredients: determination, effort and time. These are the real secrets to happiness.
-- Howard Cutler

#Happiness #Determination #Real

Right now at this very moment we have a mind, which is all the basic equipment we need to achieve complete happiness.
-- Howard Cutler

#Attitude #Positive Thinking #Mind

The type of Buddhist practices that I talk about in 'The Art of Happiness' have to do with reconditioning one's way of thinking and one's outlook, and one's perception and how one relates to people. That type of thing, any Westerner can practice at any time.
-- Howard Cutler

#Buddhist #Art #Thinking

In my opinion, everybody has the same soul from God and we are united by that. Outside, our bodies are different, our faces are different, but inside we are all the same, we share the same feelings of sadness, love, pain My music comes out of these feelings. Whether it is Japanese music, African, Qawalli, or any other form of music, if it touches your heart it becomes important for me.

There is, of course, no joy so great as the cessation of pain; in fact all joy, active or passive, is the cessation of some pain, since it must be the satisfaction of a longing, even perhaps an unconscious longing.

We live in bodies that are fearfully and wonderfully made, yet they are not immune to illness and pain. We have hearts that are capable of experiencing great love, but sometimes they get broken.

The loneliness caused by not hearing Ren's voice... I felt it deep in the night. I felt it deeper than anyone else. Even now at times I look back. In this ordinary life without Ren, I think my life with him was like a dream. Especially on a snowy night like this. On a night as cold as this. Someone keep this guy warm for me, please.

It takes loneliness in oneself to recognize it in another.

We are all so much together, but we are all dying of loneliness.

Here's an example: someone says, "Master, please hand me the knife," and he hands them the knife, blade first. "Please give me the other end," he says. And the master replies, "What would you do with the other end?" This is answering an everyday matter in terms of the metaphysical. When the question is, "Master, what is the fundamental principle of Buddhism?" Then he replies, "There is enough breeze in this fan to keep me cool." That is answering the metaphysical in terms of the everyday, and that is, more or less, the principle zen works on. The mundane and the sacred are one and the same.

The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. The religion which based on experience, which refuses dogmatic. If there's any religion that would cope the scientific needs it will be Buddhism....

The religions whose theology is least preoccupied with events in time and most concerned with eternity, have been consistently less violent and more humane in political practice. Unlike early Judaism, Christianity and Mohammedanism (all obsessed with time) Hinduism and Buddhism have never been persecuting faiths, have preached almost no holy wars and have refrained from that proselytizing religious imperialism which has gone hand in hand with political and economic oppression of colored people.

All of the religions - with the exception of Tibetan Buddhism, which doesn't believe in a heaven - teach that heaven is a better place. At the end of the program, I say that heaven is a place where you are happy. All of the religions have that in common.