Monk Motivational Quotes

Push yourself to do more and to experience more. Harness your energy to start expanding your dreams. Yes, expand your dreams. Don't accept a life of mediocrity when you hold such infinite potential within the fortress of your mind. Dare to tap into your greatness.

People in general would rather die than forgive. It's that hard. If God said in plain language. "I'm giving you a choice, forgive or die," a lot of people would go ahead and order their coffin.

I felt like poisoning a monk.

When I need to feel motivated, I might repeat, ‘I am inspired, disciplined and energized’ out loud two or three hundred times.

Only those who have tasted the bitterest of the bitter can become people who stand out among others. -Guanchang Xianxing Ji

Zay shrugged one shoulder. “I wouldn’t say it was entirely innocent. All that warm, wet water touching us everywhere. And the soap definitely had ulterior motives.” I wrapped the towel around me, tucking it tight at the top. “That career in comedy? Walk away now, Jones.

Every second of every day, a man is the sum effect of every second that has touched him before; he routinely encounters influences that will produce changes and actions that he cannot begin to predict or understand. And yet to acknowledge the complexity of these causes and motives was not to disallow agency. In that, all men are equal, even the cloistered monk--equally innocent, equally guilty. A man is not wholly responsible for what he becomes, but he is absolutely accountable for who he is.

After a year or two, the long term expats won’t see the beggars the same way. After a year or two, the cheeky young monks won’t make them smile. After a year or two, the newest restaurant opening won’t pull them in. To preserve they will withdraw and settle. They will come to accept the limits of it all. The hype won’t bother them. The promise won’t motivate them. They will have accepted their odd expat life, their awkward place in the chimera that is Myanmar today.

God is looking for relationship, not well-prepared speeches spoken from perfect motives.

There is nothing noble about being superior to some other person. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self.

I came to believe that my true identity goes beyond the outer roles I play. It transcends the ego. I came to understand that there is an Authentic 'I' within - an 'I am', or divine spark within the soul.

When you try to live your most authentic life, some of your relationships will be put in jeopardy. Losing them is a risk worth bearing, Finding a way to keep them in your life is a challenge worth taking on.

On my journey from the fantastical to the practical, spirituality has gone from being a mystical experience to something very ordinary and a daily experience. Many don’t want this, instead they prefer spiritual grandeur, and I believe that is what keeps enlightenment at bay. We want big revelations of complexity that validates our perceptions of the divine. What a let down it was to Moses when God spoke through a burning bush! But that is exactly the simplicity of it all. Our spiritual life is our ordinary life and it is very grounded in every day experience. For me, it is the daily practice of kindness, mindfulness, happiness, and peace.

Most such criticism and confrontation, usually made impulsively in anger or annoyance, does more to increase the amount of confusion in the world than the amount of enlightenment. For the truly loving person the act of criticism or confrontation does not come easily; to such a person it is evident that the act has great potential for arrogance. To confront one’s beloved is to assume a position of moral or intellectual superiority over the loved one, at least so far as the issue at hand is concerned. Yet genuine love recognizes and respects the unique individuality and separate identity of the other person. (I will say more about this later.) The truly loving person, valuing the uniqueness and differentness of his or her beloved, will be reluctant indeed to assume, “I am right, you are wrong; I know better than you what is good for you.” But the reality of life is such that at times one person does know better than the other what is good for the other, and in actuality is in a position of superior knowledge or wisdom in regard to the matter at hand. Under these circumstances the wiser of the two does in fact have an obligation to confront the other with the problem. The loving person, therefore, is frequently in a dilemma, caught between a loving respect for the beloved’s own path in life and a responsibility to exercise loving leadership when the beloved appears to need such leadership. The dilemma can be resolved only by painstaking self-scrutiny, in which the lover examines stringently the worth of his or her “wisdom” and the motives behind this need to assume leadership. “Do I really see things clearly or am I operating on murky assumptions? Do I really understand my beloved? Could it not be that the path my beloved is taking is wise and that my perception of it as unwise is the result of limited vision on my part? Am I being self-serving in believing that my beloved needs redirection?” These are questions that those who truly love must continually ask themselves. This self-scrutiny, as objective as possible, is the essence of humility or meekness. In the words of an anonymous fourteenth-century British monk and spiritual teacher, “Meekness in itself is nothing else than a true knowing and feeling of

Shake up your life a bit. Get rid of the cobwebs. Take the road less traveled. Most people live within the confines of their comfort zone. Yogi Raman was the first person to explain to me that the best thing you can do for yourself is regularly move beyond it.

Psychologist Jean Baker Miller, who has done extensive research on women’s development, has written about “a growth-fostering relationship” as having five characteristics. She says that in the relationship: 1.​Each person feels a greater sense of zest (vitality, energy). 2.​Each person feels more able to act and does act. 3.​Each person has a more accurate picture of herself or himself and the other person. 4.​Each person feels a greater sense of worth. 5.​Each person feels more connected to the other person and a greater motivation for connections with other people beyond those in the specific relationship.12 Though it was slow, hazardous, and often exasperating work, Sandy and I worked to undo the old marriage and create a new one stripped of the old dependencies and patriarchal set-up, a growth-inducing relationship that offered each of us freedom to choose and be, that not only allowed for but enhanced the soul in each of us.

If you can’t pray with hope and faith, God isn’t bothered. He wants you to tell him about your doubt and disappointment. If you can’t pray in phrases of praise and adoration, don’t fake it. Pray your complaints, your anger, or your confusion. And if you’re more comfortable with cynicism than innocence, unsure about your motives, afraid of silence, afraid of an answer, or pretty confident you aren’t doing it right, you’re in the perfect starting place. Pray as you can, and somewhere along the way, you will make the most important discovery of your life—the love the Father has for you. That discovery is God’s end of the deal. Your part is just to show up honestly. Show up, and keep showing up. That’s the one nonnegotiable when it comes to prayer.

I read Dickens and Shakespear without shame or stint; but their pregnant observations and demonstrations of life are not co-ordinated into any philosophy or religion: on the contrary, Dickens's sentimental assumptions are violently contradicted by his observations; and Shakespear's pessimism is only his wounded humanity. Both have the specific genius of the fictionist and the common sympathies of human feeling and thought in pre-eminent degree. They are often saner and shrewder than the philosophers just as Sancho-Panza was often saner and shrewder than Don Quixote. They clear away vast masses of oppressive gravity by their sense of the ridiculous, which is at bottom a combination of sound moral judgment with lighthearted good humor. But they are concerned with the diversities of the world instead of with its unities: they are so irreligious that they exploit popular religion for professional purposes without delicacy or scruple (for example, Sydney Carton and the ghost in Hamlet!): they are anarchical, and cannot balance their exposures of Angelo and Dogberry, Sir Leicester Dedlock and Mr Tite Barnacle, with any portrait of a prophet or a worthy leader: they have no constructive ideas: they regard those who have them as dangerous fanatics: in all their fictions there is no leading thought or inspiration for which any man could conceivably risk the spoiling of his hat in a shower, much less his life. Both are alike forced to borrow motives for the more strenuous actions of their personages from the common stockpot of melodramatic plots; so that Hamlet has to be stimulated by the prejudices of a policeman and Macbeth by the cupidities of a bushranger. Dickens, without the excuse of having to manufacture motives for Hamlets and Macbeths, superfluously punt his crew down the stream of his monthly parts by mechanical devices which I leave you to describe, my own memory being quite baffled by the simplest question as to Monks in Oliver Twist, or the long lost parentage of Smike, or the relations between the Dorrit and Clennam families so inopportunely discovered by Monsieur Rigaud Blandois. The truth is, the world was to Shakespear a great "stage of fools" on which he was utterly bewildered. He could see no sort of sense in living at all; and Dickens saved himself from the despair of the dream in The Chimes by taking the world for granted and busying himself with its details. Neither of them could do anything with a serious positive character: they could place a human figure before you with perfect verisimilitude; but when the moment came for making it live and move, they found, unless it made them laugh, that they had a puppet on their hands, and had to invent some artificial external stimulus to make it work.

You eat one meal a day, only what is given. Through these practices of surrender there grows a ripening of trust as the heart learns to face the mystery of life with patience, faith, and compassion. Monks must go out each morning with a bowl for alms rounds. This is not like street-corner begging. For me, it was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. Just as the sun rises, you walk across the green rice paddies to small villages with packed earthen lanes. Those who wish to offer alms wait for the monks to come and bow before they offer their food. Even the poorest villages will offer part of their food to make merit and as if to say, “Even though we are poor, we so value what you represent that we give of what little we have so that your spirit may be here in our village, in our community, and in our society.” Alms rounds are done completely in silence. When you receive the food, you can’t say, “Thank you; I appreciate the mango you gave me,” or “Thanks for the fish this morning; it looks really good.” The only response you can make is the sincerity of your heart. After you receive this food, you take it back to support and inspire your practice. When the villagers value the monk’s life and give of the little they have, you must take that. The extraordinary generosity of the village brings a powerful motivation in a monastery. The rules about alms food govern monastic life. Monks are not allowed to keep food overnight or eat anything that’s not put into their hands each morning by a layperson. This means that monks can’t live as hermits up in the mountains far from the world. They must live where people can feed them. This immediately establishes a powerful relationship. You must do something of enough value that they want to feed you. Your presence, your meditation, your dignity, has to be vivid enough so that when you bring your bowl, people want to offer food because that’s the only way you can eat! This creates an ongoing dynamic of offering that goes both ways, from those who are in the process of being initiated in the monastery, and those of the community whom it benefits.

If it were true, then Kristian had a far deeper and more urgent motive for killing Elissa than any of them had realized before.

Benedict XVI noted that this was how monks created European culture: “First and foremost, it must be frankly admitted straight away that it was not their intention to create a culture nor even to preserve a culture from the past. Their motivation was much more basic. Their goal was: quaerere Deum.

In all monasteries, there can be found examples of monks who have ordained for the two reasons that the average Korean presumes most common: failure in love or laziness. Any organization as large as the Buddhist church will be certain to attract its share of seeming undesirables. But one point that monks often made to me is that regardless of the initial motivation that prompts a man to assume a religious vocation, continued involvement in the monastic life may remold that motivation into an entirely exemplary one. Indeed, there is no way of predicting from a monk's background his ultimate success in the religious life. I knew several monks from devoted Buddhist families who ordained out of strong personal faith but were unable to adjust to the difficult lifestyle of the monastery and ended up disrobing. Finally, as monks reiterate time and again, it is not why a man initially wants to become a monk that determines the quality of his vocation, but how well he leads the life once he has ordained.

tend to side with the Monks of New Skete on the question of the canine desire to please: dogs, they say, care a lot less about pleasing humans than they care about pleasing themselves; if acting in a way that pleases you means something good will happen to them—they’ll get a biscuit, a reward, a pat on the back—they’re likely to be motivated to carry out the task, but their agenda is not necessarily driven by the pure and selfless wish to make you happy.

Purpose is the most powerful motivator in the world. The secret of passion truly is purpose.

In sum, where capitalism prospered, it established three main canons for successful economic enterprise: the calculation of quantity, the observation and regimentation of time ('Time is Money'), and the concentration on abstract pecuniary rewards. Its ultimate values-Power, Profit, Prestige-derive from these sources and all of them can be traced back, under the flimsiest of disguises, to the Pyramid Age. The first produced the universal accountancy of profit and loss; the second ensured productive efficiency in men as well as machines; the third introduced a driving motive into daily life, equivalent on its own base level to the monk's search for an eternal reward in Heaven. The pursuit of money became a passion and an obsession: the end to which all other ends were means.

The work of a person laboring in some humble occupation is no less relevant to the well-being of society than that of, for example, a doctor, a teacher, a monk, or a nun. All human endeavor is potentially great and noble. So long as we carry out our work with good motivation, thinking, “My work is for others,” it will be of benefit to the wider community.

Perhaps I lost sight of my dreams when I became an adult and resigned myself to acting the way adults were supposed to act.

I began to realize that the sterile world I had grown accustomed to had dulled my creativity and limited my vision

The monk aims, above all, for the kingdom of God. But his more immediate ambition is to rid his heart of complexity so that he seeks that goal in simplicity and without mixed motives.

Fear motivates us. Sometimes it motivates us toward what we want, but sometimes, if we aren’t careful, it limits us with what we think will keep us safe.

Thakura describes four fundamental motivations. Fear. Thakura describes this as being driven by “sickness, poverty, fear of hell or fear of death.” Desire. Seeking personal gratification through success, wealth, and pleasure. Duty. Motivated by gratitude, responsibility, and the desire to do the right thing. Love. Compelled by care for others and the urge to help them.

Worry drains the mind of much of its power and, sooner or later, it injures the soul. Worry causes your precious mental energy and potential to leak. Soon, you have no energy left. All your creativity, optimism and motivation have been drained, leaving you exhausted. Words are the verbal embodiment of power. If you want to live a more peaceful, meaningful life, you must think more meaningful, peaceful thoughts. The quality of your thinking determines the quality of your life. Solitude and quiet connect you to your creative source and release the limitless intelligence of the universe. Sunlight will release your vitality and restore your emotional and physical vibrancy. Unless you reduce your needs, you will never be fulfilled. Well-arranged time is the surest mark of a well-arranged mind. Those who are masters of their time live simple lives. A hurried, frenzied pace is not what nature intended.

The true Dharma of the Zen school does not differentiate between monk and layman, man and woman; nor does it choose between high and low, old and young; in it there is neither great nor little, neither acute nor dull energy/motive power—but only the great-hearted will finally and without fail attain. So believe profoundly in this Dharma and seek deliverance with diligence.

It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly then to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection. - Bhagavad Gita 3.35

The common responses are fright, flight or fight. Many allow their mental health issues to linger through fright. They keep their problem switch on in the background, just as a medical clinic reception keeps the radio playing: you know it’s there, but you are not quite listening. This can lead to paranoia and worsening of symptoms over time. Another group of people may decide to forcefully try and switch their problem off. They use flight to run away from their problem, turning to things like denial or being constantly busy to make their issues feel insignificant. The final group try to fight the problem. They do what they can to deal with their challenges but go about it in an unstructured manner. Fighting is great, it shows motivation and willingness to overcome the issue. But it needs structure and strategy. A boxer learns everything about their opponent and fights with a cool head. They employ structure when trying to win; we must do the same with our mental health.

Master Hsing Yun now uses a wheelchair to get around, but his mind remains clear and sharp. Partway through our meal, he turned to me with a blunt question. “Kai-Fu, have you ever thought about what your goal is in life?” Without thinking, I reflexively gave him the answer I had given to myself and others for decades: “To maximize my impact and change the world.” Speaking those words, I felt the burning embarrassment that comes when we expose our naked ambitions to others. The feeling was magnified by the silence emanating from the monk across the table. But my answer was an honest one. This quest to maximize my impact was like a tumor that had always lived inside of me, ever tenacious and always growing. I had read widely in philosophy and religious texts, but for decades had never critically examined or doubted this core motivating belief within me.

They broke up into pairs, and the other two wandered afield and came across a small, humble house that was home to some monks. Welcomed inside, one of Ponticianus’s friends, scanning the shelves, picked up The Life of Antony, a biography of the Egyptian monk by Athanasius. He was immediately pulled in by the book and “set on fire.” Suddenly he was filled with holy love and sobering shame. Angry with himself, he turned his eyes on his friend and said to him: “Tell me, I beg of you, what do we hope to achieve with all our labours? What is our aim in life? What is the motive of our service to the state? Can we hope for any higher office in the palace than to be Friends of the Emperor? And in that position what is not fragile and full of dangers? How many hazards must one risk to attain a position of even greater danger? And when will we arrive there? Whereas, if I wish to become God’s friend, in an instant I may become that now.”19 What is our aim in life? What are we aiming for when we aim our lives at some aspiration? The question isn’t whether we aim our lives. Our existence is like an arrow on a taut string: it will be sent somewhere. It’s not a matter of quelling ambition, of “settling,” as if that were somehow more virtuous (or even possible). The alternative to disordered ambition that ultimately disappoints is not some holy lethargy or pious passivity. It’s recalibrated ambition that aspires for a different end and does so for different reasons. What

If there is Garbage in your Mind, and it’s full of junk, it’s time to Tame your ‘Monkey Mind’, and make it into a Monk!

Turning your life into a masterpiece is your payment for getting to play here.

Gratitude is the grammar of success.

Fear. Thakura describes this as being driven by “sickness, poverty, fear of hell or fear of death.” Desire. Seeking personal gratification through success, wealth, and pleasure. Duty. Motivated by gratitude, responsibility, and the desire to do the right thing. Love. Compelled by care for others and the urge to help them. These

To hell with personal consequences - step up and act.

My brave patriot of the planet, choose your purpose and go after it, with a death-defying zeal - so what if you go homeless for a while - so what if you go hungry somedays - you will survive - look at the animals, they go through such situations everyday, yet they manage to survive - so will you. So, stop worrying about the basic needs of survival and give your whole being to something meaningful.

If the TM research was the only source of evidence suggesting that collective intentions can influence others at a distance, then that data would be interesting but concerns about their quasi-religious motivations would continue to simmer. Fortunately, there are completely independent experiments, conducted in entirely secular contexts, showing similar effects. Before discussing those experiments, it is instructive to consider an individual case of the power of “radiated nonviolence.” Paul Ekman is a prominent American psychologist who pioneered the analysis of micromovements in facial expressions. In his 2008 book, Emotional Awareness,264 coauthored with the Dalai Lama, Ekman discussed how he was healed from a long-term problem with anger just by being in the presence of the Dalai Lama. Ekman wrote: I had a very strong physical sensation for which we do not have an English word—it comes closest to “warmth,” but there was no heat. It certainly felt very good, and like nothing I have felt before or after.… As a scientist, I cannot ignore what I experienced.… I think the change that occurred within me started with that physical sensation. I think that what I experienced was—a non-scientific term—“goodness.” Every one of the other eight people I interviewed [who reported similar experiences] said they felt goodness; they felt it radiating and felt the same kind of warmth that I did. I have no idea what it is or how it happens, but it is not my imagination. Though we do not have the tools to understand it, that does not mean it does not exist.264 (page 229) Astonished at his response to the presence of the Dalai Lama, Ekman continued to investigate this phenomenon, which he mentioned in a 2009 interview with psychologist David Van Nuys. When asked about his as-yet unpublished study, he replied: The only thing that we carried to completion was a study of a single Buddhist monk, who’s been a monk for 32 years. And what we were able to do is to identify the differences between different forms of meditation and its impact on his mental state, and we were also able to show the calming effect that his presence had in discussion with people who are normally or typically very aggressive.

Motivation included purifying the mind of any past disturbances, anything that might cast a shadow on the pure perception of luminous emptiness. It’s not helpful to simply say, Everything is essentially empty, everything is essentially pure. Although that happens to be absolutely true, in order to know this absolute truth from the inside out, we must work with those thorns that cannot be plucked through intellectual reasoning or dharma philosophy. To be effective, working with subtle knots of guilt and remorse must be embodied experiences. Furthermore, these knots prevent the full expression of our compassion. In subtle ways, they keep us stuck on ourselves and hold us back from giving everything we have to the welfare of others.

People think that I may get motivated when they tell me that I can't do it. My only response is: challenge denied.

the more successfully we forget our selfish motivations, the more successful we become.