Mickey Patel

Many people learn only in their frst third of life, so schools don’t teach unlearning. We want to see the world clearly and know what’s what. But once we’re past the frst stage of wisdom, the next stage involves adapting to new changes. We don’t get wise just by adding and adding. We also need to subtract.

So apparently all of that exhausting, red-faced, full-on push-push-push I had been doing had given me only a 4 percent boost. I could just take it easy and get 96 percent of the results. And what a difference in experience! To go the same distance, in about the same time, but one way leaves me exhausted, and the other way, rejuvenated. I think of t

I have to smile, thinking about what my former self would say. But the former self is not always right. We shouldn’t preserve our frst opinions as if they reflect our pure, untarnished, true nature. They’re often just the result of inexperience or a temporary phase. Old opinions shouldn’t defne who we are in the future.

Attention to the ways of the self, understanding that fear, desire, and anger are natural but that you don’t have to act them out or have everything you want—this insight dissolves mental anguish without adding to it.

M: You see, my student, when a man lives As his personality, he is limited. And something within him recognizes that his personality is limited. And thus he must say and do things in order to make up for the deficiencies that he feels himself to possess. S: I see. M: Yes. In the midst of others, he will find himself needing to say things that pad h

The trouble with mindfulness is that it requires persistent effort. It is like attempting to empty the ocean with a teacup. On the one hand you have the majesty of the mind. And on the other hand you have a human being who is trying to be “mindful.” Even the term “mindfulness” makes little sense. Isn’t the entire problem a fullness of the mind? You

Never consider yourself an expert. It’s the strong swimmers who drown.