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“[A] life full of goals and end-points is like trying to abate one's hunger by eating merely the two precise ends of a banana. The concrete reality of the banana is, on the contrary, all that lies between the two ends, the journey as it were[.] Furthermore, when the time and space between destinations are cut out, all destinations tend to become ever more similar.”
“The capacity of the brain to forsee the future has much to do with the fear of death.
For when the body is worn out and the brain is tired, the whole organism welcomes death. But it is difficult to understand how death can be welcome when you are young and strong, so that you come to regard it as a dread and terrible event. For the brain, in its immaterial way, looks into the future and conceives it a good to go on and on and on forever—not realizing that its own material would at last find the process intolerably tiresome. Not taking this into account, the brain fails to see that, being itself material and subject to change, its desires will change, and a time will come when death will be good. On a bright morning, after a good night’s rest, you do not want to go to sleep. But after a hard day’s work the sensation of dropping into unconsciousness is extraordinarily pleasant.”
― Alan W. Watts
“Consequently our age is one of frustration, anxiety, agitation, and addiction to “dope.” Somehow we must grab what we can while we can, and drown out the realization that the whole thing is futile and meaningless. This “dope” we call our high standard of living, a violent and complex stimulation of the senses, which makes them progressively less sensitive and thus in need of yet more violent stimulation. We crave distraction—a panorama of sights, sounds, thrills, and titillations into which as much as possible must be crowded in the shortest possible time. To”
“For unless one is able to live fully in the present, the future is a hoax. There is no point whatever in making plans for a future which you will never be able to enjoy. When your plans mature, you will still be living for some other future beyond. You will never, never be able to sit back with full contentment and say, “Now, I’ve arrived!” Your entire education has deprived you of this capacity because it was preparing you for the future, instead of showing you how to be alive now. In”
If you read the literature of the great religions, time and time again you come across descriptions of what is usually referred to as “spiritual experience.” You will find that in all the various traditions this modality of spiritual experience seems to be the same, whether it occurs in the Christian West, the Islamic Middle East, the Hindu world of Asia, or the Buddhist world. In each culture, it is quite definitely the same experience, and it is characterized by the transcendence of individuality and by a sensation of being one with the total energy of the universe.”
“The highest to which man can attain is wonder; and if the prime phenomenon makes him wonder, let him be content; nothing higher can it give him, and nothing further should he seek for behind it; here is the limit.”
“Nothing is more creative than death, since it is the whole secret of life. It means that the past must be abandoned, that the unknown cannot be avoided, that “I” cannot continue, and that nothing can be ultimately fixed. When a man knows this, he lives for the first time in his life. By holding his breath, he loses it. By letting go he finds it.”
“To pursue it is to pursue a constantly retreating phantom, and the faster you chase it, the faster it runs ahead, This is why all the affairs of civilization are rushed, why hardly anyone enjoys what he has, and is forever seeking more and more. Happiness, then, will consist, not of solid and substantial realities, but of such abstract and superficial things as promises, hopes, and assurances.”
“Human desire tends to be insatiable. We are so anxious for pleasure that we can never get enough of it. We stimulate our sense organs until they become insensitive, so that if pleasure is to continue they must have stronger and stronger stimulants. In self-defense the body gets ill from the strain, but the brain wants to go on and on. The brain is in pursuit of happiness, and because the brain is much more concerned about the future than the present, it conceives happiness as the guarantee of an indefinitely long future of pleasures. Yet the brain also knows that it does not have an indefinitely long future, so that, to be happy, it must try to crowd all the pleasures of Paradise and eternity into the span of a few years.”
“The self-conscious feedback mechanism of the cortex allows us the hallucination that we are two souls in one body -a rational soul and an animal soul, a rider and a horse, a good guy with better instincts and finer feelings and a rascal with rapacious lusts and untruly passions. Hence the marvelously involved hypocrisies of guilt and penitence, and the frightful cruelties of punishment, warfare, and even self-torment in the name of taking the side of the good soul against the evil. The more it sides with itself, the more the good soul reveals its inseparable shadow, and the more it disowns its shadow, the more it becomes it.”
“The main affliction of our modern civilization is that we don’t know how to handle the suffering inside us and we try to cover it up with all kinds of consumption.”
― Thích Nhất Hạnh
“Due to attachment, anger, and foolishness, I have committed numberless mistakes in speech, deed and thought. I bow my head and repent. I vow from today to begin anew, to live day and night in mindfulness, and not to repeat my previous mistakes.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh
“Peace can exist only in the present moment. It is rid iculous to say "Wait until I finish this, then I will be free to live in peace." What is "this"? A diploma, a job, a house, the payment of a debt? If yo u th ink that way, peace will never come. There is always another "this" that will follow the present one. If you are not living in peace at this moment, you will never be able to. If you truly want to be at peace, you must be at peace right now. Otherwise, there is only "the hope of peace some day.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh
“as Aldous Huxley says, “news items, mutually irrelevant bits of information, blasts of corybantic or sentimental music, continually repeated doses of drama that bring no catharsis, but merely create a craving for daily or even hourly emotional enemas.”
We believe that all such occupations, dreary or dangerous as they may be, are exercises of high responsibility and even of glory, despite the maxim that “the paths of glory lead but to the grave.” But what is their actual end and purpose? Towards what is Progress? In fact, what on Earth are we doing? No one has even the ghost of a notion, save perhaps a few simple-minded people who live to smell flowers, to listen to the sea, to watch trees in the wind, to climb mountains, to eat pâté de veau en croûte, to drink the Malvasia wine from Ruby Hill, and to cuddle up with a lovely woman—and such pursuits are not really expensive, as compared with the trillions spent on the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory.”
“The energy and material which we have all squandered on making war since even 1914 could have warmed, fed, and clothed everyone on Earth, but we go about this atrocious squandering in the name of such immaterial and irrelevant fantasies as religion, honor, ideology, progress, racial purity, and patriotism—the last being not love of one’s country but of the idea of one’s country”
“This is the whole meaning of polarity, of life implying death, of subject implying object, of man implying world, and Yes implying No. [...] Just as liberation involves the recognition of oneself in what is most other, it involves the recognition of life in death - and this is why so many rites of initiation take the neophyte through a symbolic death. He accepts the certainty of death so completely that, in effect, he is dead already - and thus beyond anxiety.”
“This is why G. I. Gurdjieff, that marvelous rascal-sage, wrote in his All and Everything: The sole means now for the saving of the beings of the planet Earth would be to implant again into their presences a new organ … of such properties that every one of these unfortunates during the process of existence should constantly sense and be cognizant of the inevitability of his own death as well as the death of everyone upon whom his eyes or attention rests. Only such a sensation and such a cognizance can now destroy the egoism completely crystallized in them.”
“NO MUD, NO LOTUS Both suffering and happiness are of an organic nature, which means they are both transitory; they are always changing. The flower, when it wilts, becomes the compost. The compost can help grow a flower again. Happiness is also organic and impermanent by nature. It can become suffering and suffering can become happiness again.”
― Thích Nhất Hạnh
“The roots of war are in the way we live our daily lives -- the way we develop our industries, build up our society, and consume goods.”
“THE GREATEST GIFT One of the greatest gifts we can offer people is to embody nonattachment and nonfear. This is a true teaching, more precious than money or material resources. Many of us are very afraid, and this fear distorts our lives and makes us unhappy. We cling to objects and to people like a drowning person clings to a floating log. Practicing to realize nondiscrimination, to see the interconnectedness and impermanence of all things, and to share this wisdom with others, we are giving the gift of nonfear. Everything is impermanent. This moment passes. That person walks away. Happiness is still possible.”
― Thích Nhất Hạnh,
“One way of taking care of our suffering is to invite a seed of the opposite nature to come up. As nothing exists without its opposite, if you have a seed of arrogance, you have also a seed of compassion. Every one of us has a seed of compassion. If you practice mindfulness of compassion every day, the seed of compassion in you will become strong. You need only concentrate on it and it will come up as a powerful zone of energy. Naturally, when compassion comes up, arrogance goes down. You don’t have to fight it or push it down. We can selectively water the good seeds and refrain from watering the negative seeds.”
“Buddhism teaches that joy and happiness arise from letting go. Please sit down and take an inventory of your life. There are things you’ve been hanging on to that really are not useful and deprive you of your freedom. Find the courage to let them go.”
The conversations going on around us, and those we participate in, are also food. Are we consuming and creating the kind of food that is healthy for us and helps us grow?When we speak and act in a way that causes tension and anger, we are nourishing violence and suffering.”
“The most precious inheritance that parents can give their children is their own happiness.”
“Letting go takes a lot of courage sometimes. But once you let go, happiness comes very quickly. You won't have to go around search for it.”
“If you take a handful of salt and pour it into a small bowl of water, the water in the bowl will be too salty to drink. But if you pour the same amount of salt into a large river, people will still be able to drink the river's water.
If your heart is small, one unjust word or act will make you suffer. But if your heart is large, if you have understanding and compassion, that word or deed will not have the power to make you suffer.”
― Hanh Nhat Thich
“Don’t run away from things that are unpleasant in order to embrace things that are pleasant. Put your hands in the earth. Face the difficulties and grow new happiness.”
“Confucius said,"To know that you don't know is the beginning of knowing.”
“Once we recognize that all things are impermanent, we have no problem enjoying them. In fact, real peace and joy are only possible when we see clearly into the nature of impermanence.”
“If we are caught by the obstacle of knowledge, even if truth comes knocking at our door, we will refuse to let it in.”
“For our dialogue to be open, we need to open our hearts, set aside our prejudices, listen deeply, and represent truthfully what we know and understand.”
“Now I see that if one doesn’t know how to die, one can hardly know how to live—because death is a part of life.”
“When you produce a thought that is full of understanding, forgiveness, and compassion, that thought will immediately have a healing effect on both your physical and mental health and on those around you. If you think a thought that is full of judgment and anger, that thought will immediately poison your body and mind and the people around you.”
“What most people call power Buddhists call cravings. The five cravings are for wealth, fame, sex, fancy food, and lots of sleep. In Buddhism, we speak of the five true powers, five kinds of energy. The five powers are faith, diligence, mindfulness, concentration, and insight. The five powers are the foundation of real happiness; they are based on concrete practices”
“Everything—including love, hate, and suffering—needs food to continue. If suffering continues, it’s because we keep feeding our suffering.”
“We have to learn the art of stopping - stopping our thinking, our habit energies, our forgetfulness, the strong emotions that rule us. When an emotion rushes through us like a storm, we have no peace. We turn on the TV and then we turn it off. We pick up a book and then we put it down. How can we stop this state of agitation? How How can we stop our fear, despair, anger, and craving?
“When you practice looking deeply, you see your true nature of no birth, no death; no being, no non-being; no coming, no going; no same, no different. When you see this, you are free from fear. You are free from craving and free from jealousy. No fear is the ultimate joy. When you have the insight of no fear, you are free. And like the great beings, you ride serenely on the waves of birth and death.”
“If we can relax when our strong emotions come, then we don’t pass fear on to our children and to future generations.”
Some businesspeople, even those who have persuaded themselves that their work is very important, feel empty in their occupation. They provide employment to many people in their factories, newspapers, insurance firms, and supermarket chains, yet their financial success is an empty happiness because it is not motivated by understanding or compassion. Caught up in their small world of profit and loss, they are unaware of the suffering and poverty in the world. When we are not int ouch with this larger reality, we will lack the compassion we need to nourish and guide us to happiness.
“If we lose the present moment, we lose life.”
“Perhaps one of the reasons we don't enjoy all these activities as much as we could is because we think activities need to be exciting for us to enjoy them. Many people confuse joy and happiness with excitement. But excitement is not the same as happiness. With joy and happiness we have a sense of satisfaction. There's a feeling of satisfaction in being in the here and now, when you recognize you have so many conditions for happiness in the present moment, whether you're sitting, walking, standing, or working.”
‘We embraced dangerous views for so long, taking the impermanent to be permanent, and believing in the existence of a separate self. We took suffering to be pleasure and look at the temporary as if it were eternal. We mistook the false for the true. Now the time has come to tear down all the walls of forgetfulness and false views.”
“It is not impermanence that makes us suffer. What makes us suffer is wanting things to be permanent when they are not. We need to learn to appreciate the value of impermanence. If we are in good health and are aware of impermanence, we will take good care of ourselves. When we know that the person we love is impermanent, we will cherish our beloved all the more. Impermanence teaches us to respect and value every moment and all the precious things around us and inside of us. When we practice mindfulness of impermanence, we become fresher and more loving.”
“People were entrapped not only by illness and unjust social conditions, but by the sorrows and passions they themselves created in their own hearts and minds.”\
“Fear feeds off ignorance, whereas compassion and lucidity flower from understanding.”
“Reconciliation can also be with your own self. If you don’t reconcile with yourself, happiness with another person is impossible.”
“We know that if we eat a certain food, it will upset our digestion, but we still eat it. The way out is to beware of the superficial appearance. From outside, something may look very pleasant. But we have to look deeper and use that deep understanding to see the superficial aspects of the object of our desire. Our understanding can overcome our cravings.”
“To make hell into paradise, we only need to change the mind on which it is based.
[...] With your deluded mind, you make hell for yourself. With your true mind, you make paradise.”
“Anger is rooted in our lack of understanding of ourselves and of the causes, deep-seated as well as immediate, that brought about this unpleasant state of affairs. Anger is also rooted in desire, pride, agitation, and suspicion. The primary roots of our anger are in ourselves. Our environment and other people are only secondary.”
“Releasing both victory and defeat, the tranquil minds dwell in happiness. Victory produces hostility.”
“Western civilization places so much emphasis on the idea of hope that we sacrifice the present moment. Hope is for the future. It cannot help us discover joy, peace, or enlightenment in the present moment.”
“A single wise word bringing peace to the listener is worth more than a thousand speeches of empty words.”
“The good certainly cling to nothing. They do not talk aimlessly, concerned with personal gains. The wise, whether experiencing comfort or discomfort, show neither elation not depression.”
“Unwholesome acts cannot bring wholesome results. The things a fool gains amount to nothing.”
“Do not be concerned with what others have or have not done. Observe your own actions and inactions.”
“Those who fail to distinguish the nonessential from the essential and the essential from the nonessential will, in feeding all wrong thoughts, fail to attain the essential.”
“TO ME, THE definition of hell is simple: it is a place where there is no understanding and no compassion.”
“When our mind is calm, it reflects reality accurately, without distortion. Breathing, sitting, and walking with mindfulness calms disturbing mental formations such as anger, fear, and despair, allowing us to see reality more clearly.”
“If we consume toxic magazine articles, movies, or video games, they will feed our craving, our anger, and our fear.”
“Many parents love their children. Yet they make them suffer a lot in the name of love. They’re often not capable of understanding their children’s suffering, difficulties, hopes, and aspirations. We have to ask ourselves, “Am I really loving the other person by understanding them or am I just projecting my own needs?”
“Time has much more value than money. Time is life. Money is nothing compared with life. In two hours of drinking tea together, we don’t get money, but we do get life.”
“The wise do not consider the chains and shackles of jail to be the toughest restraints. The chains of attachment are the strongest of the ties that bind.”
“We absorb and reflect what is around us. If we live in a place where people are angry and violent, then eventually we’ll become like them.”
"Pleasure is of madman; Happiness is of sages"
"emotions and cognition are not separated in the brain"
"when you extend a friendly hand, you cannot make a fist"
Comedians list:
Carlin
Cosby
Segura
Mulaney
Oswalt
Jefferies
Tosh
Bamford
Birbigia
Cross
Aziz Ansari
Regen
Gaffigan
Wong
Pinette
Kathleen Madigan
Louis CK
Tom Papa
Kinane
Kurt braunohler
Shows: Tough Crowd
Comedian list:
Tom Segura
Dave Barry
Ali Wong
Stanhope
Marc Maron
Eddie Murphy
Jim Jefferies
John Mulaney
Denis Leary
Patton Oswalt
Bill Burr
Aziz Ansari
Dane Cook
John Pinette
Eddie Izzard
Robin Williams
Robert Klein
Don Rickles
Rodney Dangerfield
Bill Cosby
Ricky Gevaris
George Carlin
Joey Diaz
Richard Jeni
Jim Nordon
Jim Breuer
Kevin James
Brian Regen
Bob Saget
Gabriel Iglesias
Joe Rogan
Daniel Tosh
Frankie Boyle
Howie Mandel
Lewis Black
Jeff Foxworthy
Larry the Cable Guy
Woody Allen
Rita Rudner
Chris Tucker
Todd Barry
Martin Lawrence
Amy Schumer
Bill Hicks
Louis C.K.
Lenny Bruce
Demetri Martin
Key & Peele
Richard Pyror
Lily Tomlin
Jerry Seinfeld
David Cross
Steve Martin
Adam Sandler
Craig Ferguson
Jim Carrey
Norm Macdonald
Todd Barry
Eugene Mirman
Steve Wright
Greg Giraldo
Colin Quinn
Ari Shaffir
Patrice O'Neal
Nick Dipaolo
Dennis Miller
Dave Attell
Sarah Silverman
Maria Bamford
Carlos Mencia
Sam Kinison
Jeff Ross
Ron White
Tom Papa
Omid Djalili
Jim Gaffigan
Kurt Braunohler
Anthony Jeselnik
Kinane
My (ranked) favorites from this list, recently completed (full career review) with average album ratings.
***Not entirely representative as some comedians are far more prolific than others:
1. Cosby (23 albums and performances) 4.5/5
2. Carlin (80s-00s) 4.5/5
3. Patton Oswalt (6 albums) 4.5/5
4. John Mulaney (4 albums) 4.5/5
5. Tom Segura (2 albums) 4/5
6. Kurt Braunohler (2 albums) 4/5
7. Louis CK (11 and "louie") 3.5/5
8. Kyle Kinane (5 albums) 3/5
