Angelo Dilullo Quotes

What are you when you don’t think about yourself, or your past, or your future? This is quite mysterious indeed. It may seem eerie, confounding, or just plain bizarre. However, if you persist in inquiring in this way, “Who am I?” not settling for any memory (past) or referring to your imagination (future), you might find that you actually have no idea who or what you are. Even stranger, regardless of what was just recognized, your sense of “I” or “me” is quite strong and obvious with no facts, thoughts, or references attached to it. You find yourself in a space with no past and no future. This space does not rely on any concepts to define who you are, and yet here you remain. Undeniably here, awake, alert, and aware of the senses. The sounds haven’t gone anywhere, have they? The colors and shapes in front of you are still there. In fact, they are a bit more vivid, aren’t they? The sensations in the body are right here. Yet there is no story, no past, no future, no “substance” of what you always thought of as you. At this point you have a choice. You can start thinking again and just forget this little exercise, or you can decide you really want to find the answer and so you keep asking and keep investigating directly in this moment, “What am I without referencing the past and future?” If you do proceed in this way and find yourself in a thoughtless space, it’s okay to just remain there. You don’t need to continue to ask the question unless you get lost in thought.

To study the Buddha Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind

Who am I? What am I? How do I live a life free of suffering? What is eternity? What is this that is aware before, during, and after a thought? What is consciousness? Is it possible to be conscious without thought? Where Am I? What is reality? What is true peace? What is the deepest truth of this moment? Who is observing thoughts? Who is aware of this experience? What is sound? Who is hearing the sounds? Who is feeling the sensation?

What am I without referencing the past and future?

Thinking is the disease of the human mind.

After liberation, identity is essentially dissolved into presence.

My Zen teacher years ago said the following: Ultimately, spiritual realization is about living out of the innermost promptings of your tender and loving heart. However, without awakening you will think you are living out of the innermost promptings of your tender and loving heart, when in fact you will be living out of the outermost promptings of your deluded

during practice is the goal. No experience is preferable. No state is a mark of progress. This is not about progress. This is about seeing and feeling things as they are without the distortions of preference and expectation.

What’s interesting is that both overemphasizing and underemphasizing the progression and stages aspect of awakening are ultimately rooted in the same tendency: a deep-seated and unrecognized tendency to distance ourselves from life. In the first case (overemphasis), we distance ourselves by using concepts and intellect to hide in the “safe” domain of thought where we maintain control by endlessly rearranging and comparing concepts. In the second case (underemphasis), we distance ourselves from life by failing to acknowledge that to truly get under our self-centered and unconscious tendencies, we have to be willing to let go, which includes letting go of control of what others think about us. We have to face the truth of dissolution—that everything will go in time, including all ideas we have about ourselves,