While the primary function of formal Buddhist meditation is to create the possibility of the experience of "being," my work as a therapist has shown me that the demands of intimate life can be just as useful as meditation in moving people toward this capacity. Just as in formal meditation, intimate relationships teach us that the more we relate to each other as objects, the greater our disappointment. The trick, as in meditation, is to use this disappointment to change the way we relate.
Mark EpsteinUncovering your real desires can be terrifying. It can also set you spectacularly free.
Mark EpsteinThe central premise of this book is that the Western psychological notion of what it means to have a self is flawed.
Mark EpsteinWhen we seek happiness through accumulation, either outside of ourselves-from other people, relationships, or material goods-or from our own self-development, we are missing the essential point. In either case we are trying to find completion. But according to Buddhism, such a strategy is doomed. Completion comes not from adding another piece to ourselves but from surrendering our ideas of perfection.
Mark EpsteinThe willingness to face traumas - be they large, small, primitive or fresh - is the key to healing from them. They may never disappear in the way we think they should, but maybe they donโt need to. Trauma is an ineradicable aspect of life. We are human as a result of it, not in spite of it.
Mark Epstein