Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
My knowledge is, if you will follow the teachings of Jesus Christ and his Apostles, as recorded in the New Testament, every man and woman will be put in possession of the Holy Ghost. . . . They will know things that are, that will be, and that have been. They will understand things in heaven, things on the earth, and things under the earth, things of time, and things of eternity, according to their several callings and capacities.
Combining these two ancient teachings (yoga and vipassana) in a seamless manner, which will bring maximum benefits to the meditators, is not at all a challenge. It is just removal of some mental blocks. Ideally speaking, this combination should be done based on scientific, clinical and neurobiological studies and the combined structure should be made brick by brick, layer by layer in a flawless manner as a homogeneous composition.
Take an old man's word; there's nothing worse than a muddle in all the world. It is easy to face Death and Fate, and the things that sound so dreadful. It is on my muddles that I look back with horror - on the things that I might have avoided. We can help one another but little. I used to think I could teach young people the whole of life, but I know better now, and all my teaching of George has come down to this: beware of muddle.
When I was young, I went to college, had a teacher who was, had been a student of Trilling's at Columbia, this was in California. And he, I started reading him around that time, and then I went to Columbia as well, Trilling was still teaching there, I took a course with him. He was not a great teacher, but he was, when I was younger, he was a good model for the kind of criticism I wanted to do, because he thought very dialectically.
I have spent forty-five years teasing out the universal principles of success that are necessary to create massive breakthroughs. I am committed to teaching and disseminating those around the world. I also believe that most transformational leaders are focusing too much on outer techniques and overlooking the important inner qualities of beingness and presence that are required to create real and lasting transformation in the world.
If you would be a better teacher, teach by the spirit. That is the thing that gives strength and power, meaning and life, to our otherwise weak efforts... remember, you cannot give away that which you do not possess. Study the life of the master. You do not have to have a college degree to be an efficient teacher. But you do have to become acquainted with the life and teachings of the master to be an effective teacher in the church.
Love is the capacity to take care, to protect, to nourish. If you are not capable of generatng that kind of energy toward yourself - if you are not capable of taking care of yourself, of nourishing yourself, of protecting yourself - it is very difficult to take care of another person. In the Buddhist teaching, it's clear that to love oneself is the foundation of the love of other people. Love is a practice. Love is truly a practice.
The atheist, agnostic, or secularist ... should guard against the encroachment of religion in areas where it has no place, and in particular the control of education by religious authority. The attempts to ban the teaching of evolution or other scientific theories -- a feeble echo of medieval church tyranny and hostility to learning, but an echo nonetheless are serious threats to freedom of inquiry and should be vigorously combated.
... teaching cannot be a process of transference of knowledge from the one teaching to the learner. This is the mechanical transference from which results machinelike memorization, which I have already criticized. Critical study correlates with teaching that is equally critical, which necessarily demands a critical way of comprehending and of realizing the reading of the word and that of the world, the reading of text and of context.
Remember all those who suffer from their own downfall, after having believed themselves to be winners, and who now weep for the many lost hours. So while you still have time, seek to enrich your own spirits for the tomorrow which awaits you because, in accordance with the teachings of the Lord, it is of no use to retain the outward appearance of the splendor of all the empires of this world, if you maintain darkness within your heart.
Kaz came to Switzerland where I was teaching to share with me [Heart Sutra] wondrous insight. There he and I worked on this new translation - with my part being to help render it into a verse form that would be good to chant. Since I have worked with many dying people over the years and often share the Heart Sutra with them, I found this new version that we created together to be so much more accessible to those who were facing death.
I served for 42 years on the board of trustees of the largest Presbyterian seminary, Princeton Theological Seminary, and we had brilliant people - teachers and students both-but they did not come up with many new concepts. They weren't invited to come up with new concepts. Anybody who had come up with a new concept would have been under suspicion for being out of step with the tradition or out of step with the teachings of the church.
It's an enormous opportunity to get a message out to people who may be less likely to read and listen to CDs - to people who would otherwise not be exposed to the most important teachings on the planet. These teachings are about how can we get along and survive as a people - how we can love each other, be kind and decent, serve each other, and be compassionate. Unfortunately, there aren't many messages like that in the popular culture.
Nothing enrages me more than when people criticize my criticism of school by telling me that schools are not just places to learn maths and spelling, they are places where children learn a vaguely defined thing called socialization...I think schools generally do an effective and terribly damaging job of teaching children to be infantile, dependent, intellectually dishonest, passive and disrespectful to their own developmental capacities.
The ruin of a man's teaching comes of his followers, such as having never touched the foundation he has laid, build upon it wood, hay, and stubble, fit only to be burnt. Therefore, if only to avoid his worst foes, his admirers, a man should avoid system. The more correct a system the worse will it be misunderstood; its professed admirers will take both its errors and their misconceptions of its truths, and hold them forth as its essence.
As a kid, I succumbed to peer pressure; I created an image of myself that was not true. But that belief system ended with the death of a close friend. It was then that I reached out for help from my father. It wasn't the teachings of The Four Agreements exactly, it was just my father's teachings in general. And because of this, I am grateful to continue my family's legacy. In this way, I say "thank you" to my family and teachers before me.
I started teaching yoga in 1974 in Colorado, I was living in Winter Park, and I started teaching skiers. At that point I was teaching more of the Sivananda system and just pushing it up a little bit to make it a little more rajasic a little more active, a little more physical. People would come, and feel great, and by the time I left Colorado in 1980 I'd taught pretty much everyone in town - the ski patrol, ski instructors, the bar owners.
Socrates was the chief saint of the Stoics throughout their history ; his attitude at the time of his trial, his refusal to escape, his calmness in the face of death , and his contention that the perpetrator of injustice injures himself more than his victim, all fitted in perfectly with Stoic teaching. So did his indifference to heat and cold, his plainness in matters of food and dress, and his complete independence of all bodily comforts.
The so-called Church Fathers are not some theologians as we know them nowadays. They were close to the teaching of the Apostles conveying the teaching of those who were close to Jesus. Their theology and wisdom is close to everyday life. We have to thank John Michael Talbot that he has been able to unearth the treasures of those times. This was only possible because he himself in his community experiences the Gospel lived out in our times.
The American People are witnessing the greatest lie that is cleverly orchestrated by President Obama and his whole administration. President Obama feeds people poison, giving them the idea that they are entitled to take from the wealthier who have lived and worked in a democracy that understands that capitalism is the only truth that keeps a nation healthy ... [Obama uses] a socialistic, Marxist teaching, and with it, he rapes this nation.
I certainly had qualms about writing my piece in the first place, since I knew I couldn't express my disdain for many of Rev. Falwell's teachings. But I don't regret having written about the sides of Rev. Falwell that had nothing to do with politics or religion - his grandkids, his ministry for ex-alcoholics, his penchant for practical jokes. I think it's important to recognize the humanity in everyone, even those we strongly disagree with.
Here, then, is a simple rule of thumb for all of us to apply: If the words of Jesus challenge something I believe or challenge the way I live, the problem is not with Jesus. The problem is with me. Charles Spurgeon expressed this in broader, scriptural terms when he said, “If there is any verse that you would like left out of the Bible, that is the verse that ought to stick to you, like a blister, until you really attend to its teaching.”31
Personally, I am enthusiastic about the future. You can be too. You are living in the most exciting period of time in history. Many reasons could be cited for that optimism. Yet your greatest source of hope and assurance is that you have the fulness of the teachings of the Master. They will show you how to live a good life. You can receive ordinances and covenants that when righteously lived assure true happiness and significant attainment.
Though the structures and patterns of mathematics reflect the structure of, and resonate in, the human mind every bit as much as do the structures and patterns of music, human beings have developed no mathematical equivalent to a pair of ears. Mathematics can only be "seen" with the "eyes of the mind". It is as if we had no sense of hearing, so that only someone able to sight read music would be able to appreciate its patterns and harmonies.
There is a distinction between what may be called a problem and what may be considered an exercise. The latter serves to drill a student in some technique or procedure, and requires little if any, original thought... No exercise, then, can always be done with reasonbable dispatch and with a miniumum of creative thinking. In contrast to an exercise, a problem, if it is a good one for its level, should require though on the part of the student.
Rapture teaching is one of the most faith deadening teachings ever preached. It has the most neutralizing affect on a Christian's aggressive growth process. We have a lot to do in this Earth and there is going to be a lot of stuff that we need to do in eternity. If you don't have a big comprehensive vision, both restorationally and eternally, then what motivation is there to do much except try to win a few souls to get a big reward in heaven?
Whereas disinfecting Christians involves isolating them and teaching them to be good, discipling Christians involves propelling Christians into the world to risk their lives for the sake of others. Now the world is our focus, and we gauge success in the church not on the hundreds or thousands whom we can get into our buildings but on the hundreds or thousands who are leaving our buildings to take on the world with the disciples they are making
It is an irrational claim to believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ and at the same time to hold that the greater part of his teachings have no application at the present time. If you say that the reason why the powers do not follow them that believe (as Christ said they would) is because you have not faith enough and are not pure enough-that will be all right. But to say that they have no application at the present time is to be ridiculous.
Directing is a nice job. It's the best job for me. If i had to pay money to do it, I would do itIt's problematical. It's disapointing often. It's very challenging. It's frustrating as hell. It's extremely demanding and totally satisfying work. And if I wasn't doing this, I would have to do legitimate work for a living. There are guys out there really working for a living, cleaning streets or coal mining, teaching. Directing is playing. Acting.
Thing that we wanted to do was redefine what a green job was, what a climate job was. We said: "Wait a minute. There's all these people out there who are doing low-carbon work." It's not just guys in hard hats putting up solar panels. Teaching is low carbon. Caring for the sick is low carbon. Daycare is a green workplace. Overwhelmingly, this is work that is done by women, overwhelmingly women of color, on the frontlines of austerity clawbacks.
My background is Protestant so I benefited from the great Bible teaching that was provided there... I did love the more culturally classical things, like Irish music, which I think is some of the most congregational-style music when you think of... 'St. Patrick's Breastplate' (and) 'Danny Boy.' These are traditional Irish melodies. I think being brought up there (Ireland) gave me a sense of melody that is very attuned to congregational singing.
I think we have to go through everything we go through in our life, and I believe my purpose in life was to teach self-reliance. So I had the experience of relying on myself very early in life in order to have that knowing, because otherwise I would've just read about it. I think of it now as a great advantage that I had. It certainly taught me to rely upon myself at a very young age. And that's what I've been teaching since I was a little boy.
Far from affording artists continuous inspiration, mass-media sources for art have become a dead end. They have combined with the abstractness of institutional art teaching to produce a fine-arts culture given over to information and not experience. This faithfully echoes the drain of concreteness from modern existence- the reign of mere unassimilated data instead of events that gain meaning by being absorbed into the fabric of imaginative life.
I have a feeling that art is something you do for yourself, and that any time you turn your decisions over to someone else you're postponing at best, your own development. The atmosphere of the workshop should be that of trying out one's own work and accepting the signals from others but not accepting the dictation of others because that is a violation of the spirit of art. Art can't be done by somebody else, it has got to be done by the artist.
For all the time schools devote to the teaching of mathematics, very little (if any) is spent trying to convey just what the subject is about. Instead, the focus is on learning and applying various procedures to solve math problems. That's a bit like explaining soccer by saying it is executing a series of maneuvers to get the ball into the goal. Both accurately describe various key features, but they miss the what and the why of the big picture.
I am not a speaker nor a preacher. I have no mission to change the world. I have no original words or teaching to give anyone. I reflect only what I've seen and heard - most ordinary, very common. I have no fascination for fresh ideas and activity. All enthusiasm for worldly endeavours and strivings have all but gone. For me, thoughts, words and deeds- the activities of life, are merely the utensils for serving out the 'prasad' of the Being-ness.
The key to teaching anything is to remember what it was like not to understand that thing. That's a very hard thing to do. Every time you come to understand something you didn't understand before, you are transformed. You become a different person from who you were before. The key to teaching someone else to understand that same thing is to remember your former, untransformed self. If you can do that, I think you can teach anything, even physics.
The basics teachings of Buddha are about understanding what we are, who we are, why we are. When we begin to realize what we are, who we are, why we are, then we begin to realize what we are not, who we are not, why we are not. We begin to realize that we don't have basic, substantial, solid, fundamental ground that we can exert anymore. We begin to realize that our ideas of security and our concept of freedom have been purely phantom experiences.
The best attitude to receive the Pope's teachings is to understand that he is a religious leader and the essence of his message comes from the Gospel, not from one ideology or another.And so, if our economic systems are not oriented toward the human person but only concerned with profits, he wants to confront the system and change it. This, by the way, is common to all the popes, it comes directly from the so-called social teachings of the church.
A failure remains a failure only if we refuse to learn from it. Any situation that teaches us greater humility, sobriety, wisdom about self and others, responsibility, forgiveness, depth of reflection, and better decision making -\-\teaching us what's truly important-\-\is not an ultimate failure. Sometimes what we deem a failure at the time it happens actually serves to foster a change within us that creates an even greater success down the road.
Women have endeavored to guide men to love because patriarchal thinking has sanctioned this work even as it has undermined it by teaching men to refuse guidance...A useful gift all love's practitioners can give is the offering of forgiveness. It not only allows us to move away from blame, from seeing others as the cause of our sustained lovelessness, but it enables us to experience agency, to know we can be responsible for giving and finding love.
I was associated with the Artist Placement Group in the early 1970s and David Hall, the video artist, was an Artist Placement Group artist. I was completely broke at that time, and he said to me, "Come and do some teaching" - he was head of department at Maidstone College of Art. And I went and did a couple of teaching days and practically the only person who showed up was David Cunningham [Flying Lizard's main man], with all of this finished work
When I was teaching at an institution that bent over backward for foreign students, I was asked in class one day: "What is your policy toward foreign students?" My reply was: "To me, all students are the same. I treat them all the same and hold them all to the same standards." The next semester there was an organized boycott of my classes by foreign students. When people get used to preferential treatment, equal treatment seems like discrimination.
The reason for teaching history is not that it changes society, but that it changes pupils; it changes what they see in the world, and how they see it.... To say someone has learnt history is to say something very wide ranging about the way in which he or she is likely to make sense of the world. History offers a way of seeing almost any substantive issue in human affairs, subject to certain procedures and standards, whatever feelings one may have.
If you read philosophical texts of the tradition, you'll notice they almost never said 'I,' and didn't speak in the first person. From Aristotle to Heidegger, they try to consider their own lives as something marginal or accidental. What was essential was their teaching and their thinking. Biography is something empirical and outside, and is considered an accident that isn't necessarily or essentially linked to the philosophical activity or system.
THE PATH IS exceedingly vast. From ancient times to the present day, even the greatest sages were unable to perceive and comprehend the entire truth; the explanation and teachings of masters and saints express only part of the whole. It is not possible for anyone to speak of such things in their entirety. Just head for the light and heat, learn from the gods, and through the virtue of devoted practice of the Art of Peace, become one with the divine.
A wealth of knowledge is openly accessible in nature. Our ancestors knew this and embraced the natural cures found in the bosoms of the earth. Their classroom was nature. They studied the lessons to be learned from animals, knowing that much of human behavior can be explained by watching the wild beasts around us. Animals are constantly teaching us things about ourselves and the way of the universe, but most people are too blind to watch and listen.
I was raised to think about philosophy and religious thought and the soul and the spirit of humankind in a different way, also really socially progressive teachings of the Baha'i faith, the equality of men and women, the elimination of racial prejudice, the equality of science and religion, so it was a big cauldron of big ideas in my household. And we were weird and unhappy family, but nonetheless that was a really positive thing that came out of it.
When I started teaching, I would get miffed if a student asked me to write him or her a recommendation for law school - I'd feel like that's not what we were doing in the course. But now I see that person as someone who might be gainfully employed. I bring in a lot of people to speak to my classes, and I've gotten to the point where I've expanded the type of guests I invite to include people both inside and outside of the traditional publishing world.
Psychologists would say that the only two important forms of social learning are imitation and teaching, and they will spend time trying to figure out if animals imitate or teach. Sometimes they find they do; sometimes they find they don't. And so that's kind of the level of controversy there. Biologists would include imitation and teaching and a range of other kinds of social learning. So we would call that culture, whereas the psychologist wouldn't.